The US space agency Nasa has named the four astronauts who will take humanity back to the Moon, including the first woman and the first person of colour to be assigned to a lunar mission.
The astronauts won't land on the Moon. Instead, they will take Nasa's Orion capsule on a 10-day journey around the Earth's only natural satellite, to test the spaceship's life-support systems. If successful, the mission could pave the way for a new Moon landing, as well as future exploratory missions to Mars, as part of Nasa's Artemis programme.
“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars," said Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. "This is their crew; this is our crew; this is humanity's crew.”
The members of the crew are Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Hammock Koch, plus Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The four of them were described as...