USA ( CBS News ) The United States space agency (NASA) has unveiled the four-member crew for its upcoming mission around the moon, a team that includes the first woman, the first person of colour and the first Canadian assigned to a lunar mission.
At a ceremony on Monday in Houston, Texas, NASA announced that Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen would crew the Artemis II mission for a 10-day flight, marking the agency’s first manned moon voyage in over half a century.
“For the first time in more than 50 years, these individuals — the Artemis II crew — will be the first humans to fly to the vicinity of the Moon,” Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center, said in a statement.
The launch, scheduled for 2024, will be only the second in the Artemis programme, a multinational initiative to establish a “long-term presence at the moon”. The last time a manned crew approached the moon was in 1972, as part of NASA’s Apollo programme.
“This mission paves the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration and presents new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry and academic partnerships,” Wyche said.NASA unveils sleeker spacesuits for future US mission to Moon
