On Monday, NASA announced the four astronauts, 2 of which are naval aviators, will fly to the moon by the end of next year, consisting of three men and one woman. The astronauts were introduced during a ceremony in Houston, home to the nation’s astronauts as well as Mission Control, with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stating that they are “humanity’s crew.”
The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth as a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.
The mission’s commander, Reid Wiseman, will be joined by Victor Glover, an African American naval aviator; Christina Koch, who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a woman; and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. All are space veterans except Hansen.
This is the first moon crew to include a woman and someone not from the U.S., and the first crew in NASA’s new moon program named Artemis. NASA aims to land two astronauts on the moon by 2025, provided the next 10-day moonshot goes well. The space agency picked from 41 active astronauts for its first Artemis crew, with Canada having four candidates.
Here is a list of all the NASA missions that landed on the moon:
- Apollo 11 (1969) – First crewed mission to land on the moon
- Apollo 12 (1969)
- Apollo 14 (1971)
- Apollo 15 (1971)
- Apollo 16 (1972)
- Apollo 17 (1972) – Final crewed mission to the moon
In addition to these six crewed missions, NASA also conducted several unmanned missions that landed on the moon. These include:
- Ranger 7 (1964)
- Ranger 8 (1965)
- Ranger 9 (1965)
- Surveyor 1 (1966)
- Surveyor 3 (1967)
- Surveyor 5 (1967)
- Surveyor 6 (1967)
- Surveyor 7 (1968)
It’s worth noting that NASA has plans to send more missions to the moon in the future, including the Artemis program which aims to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024.
