November 2024 Scheduled for NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission Orbiting the Moon

NASA announced on Tuesday that it is making progress towards launching a crewed mission around the Moon in November of next year. This comes after a successful unmanned test flight as part of the Artemis program. The goal of the program is to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo missions in 1972. The first Artemis mission concluded in December with the safe return of an uncrewed Orion capsule after a 25-day journey around the Moon. Artemis 2, scheduled for late November 2024, will involve a four-person crew orbiting the Moon without landing on it. NASA is excited about the upcoming crewed mission and is confident in the progress made so far. The members of the Artemis 2 crew will be announced later this year, with one of them being a Canadian astronaut. Artemis 3, planned for approximately 12 months after Artemis 2, will mark the first time astronauts land on the Moon’s south pole. While there are still significant developments that need to take place, NASA remains committed to the 12-month timeline and continues to work on the necessary hardware for the mission.

A lunar lander is currently being constructed by SpaceX, along with spacesuits, which are still in the development phase, as stated by Free.

NASA’s objective is to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon and subsequently embark on a lengthy journey to Mars.Under the Artemis missions, NASA has plans to send a woman and an individual of color to the Moon, marking a significant milestone.It is worth noting that only 12 individuals, all of whom were white men, have had the opportunity to set foot on the Moon.During its voyage around the Moon and back, the spacecraft Orion covered a distance of well over a million miles, surpassing any previous habitable spacecraft’s distance from Earth.

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