On Monday, the first group of astronauts to head back to the moon will be announced. The astronauts will be part of the Artemis II mission and will include three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency.
Astronauts will be part of the Artemis II mission
Nicole Mortillaro · CBC News
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On Monday, the first group of astronauts to head back to the moon since1972will be announced.
The astronauts will be part of the Artemis II mission, where they will orbit the moon. The mission willinclude three people from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
While NASA has a roster of 41 active astronauts, there are only four active Canadian astronauts: Jeremy Hansen, Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons, Joshua Kutryk and David Saint-Jacques.
The announcement will be made at 11 a.m. ET.
It's part of NASA's Artemis program that will return humans to the surface of the moon by 2025,including the first woman and first racialized person.The last time humans were on the moon was in December 1972 for the Apollo 17 mission.
Artemis I, the first test of NASA's rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion crew capsule, launched in November in a 25-day mission around the moon.
Saint-Jacquesand Hansen joined the astronaut corps in 2009, with Saint-Jacques spending204 days on the International Space Station in 2018–2019. It was the longest Canadian mission to date.
Sidey-Gibbons and Kutryk were recruited in 2017 and since then, the pair have been training vigorously for future missions.
On March 16, the CSAupdated their logo, saying it sought "to enter this new chapter with a modern identifying symbol."
CBC will provide extensive coverage of the astronaut announcement on CBC.ca and News Network.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Senior reporter, science
Based in Toronto, Nicole covers all things science for CBC News. As an amateur astronomer, Nicole can be found looking up at the night sky appreciating the marvels of our universe. She is the editor of the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the author of several books. In 2021, she won the Kavli Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for a Quirks and Quarks audio special on the history and future of Black people in science. You can send her story ideas at Nicole.Mortillaro@cbc.ca.
