NASA plans on Monday to introduce the four astronauts for its Artemis II lunar flyby mission, set for launch as early as next year in what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon since the end of the Apollo era more than 50 years ago.
Officials from the Canadian Space Agency , which is contributing an astronaut to the crew, will join their U.S. counterparts for the announcement in Houston at Johnson Space Center, NASA's mission control base.
The Artemis 18 group, a mix of veteran astronauts and relative newcomers, were also chosen on the basis of diversity, so the crew presented on Monday will most likely include not only the first woman but the first person of color assigned to a lunar mission. They were the last of 12 NASA astronauts who walked on the moon during six Apollo missions starting in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.
The outbound journey would culminate with Orion looping around the moon, then using both the Earth's and the moon's gravity to send the spacecraft on a propulsion-free return flight lasting about four more days, ending in a splashdown at sea.
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