On April 3, NASA will announce the names of three American and one Canadian astronauts who will fly around the Moon as part of the Artemis II mission. This was announced by the head of the organization Bill Nelson.
The Artemis II mission will be the first human flight to the Moon since 1972. Within its framework, the Orion spacecraft will fly around the Moon on a free return trajectory and then return to Earth. The mission crew will consist of four astronauts. Three of them will represent NASA, the fourth — the Canadian Space Agency (it received it for its contribution to the Gateway Lunar orbital station project).
At the moment, the launch of Artemis II is scheduled for November 2024. NASA is already actively working on its preparation. The first stage of the SLS rocket for this mission will be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in the summer. Specialists are also preparing for the reuse of some components of the Orion capsule, which flew around the Moon as part of the Artemis I mission. Among them are phased array antennas, an image processing unit, GPS receivers and inertial measuring devices. In addition, the mobile launch platform, which was damaged during the launch of the SLS rocket, would be repaired.
As for the Artemis III mission, during which American astronauts are going to land at the south pole of the Moon, formally it is still scheduled for 2025. But with a very high probability, this date will change. A lot will depend on the speed of commissioning of the Starship spacecraft, which has still to make its first orbital flight.
According to https://phys.org
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