Canadian Jeremy Hansen named on NASA’s Artemis II mission around the moon | Globalnews.ca

Canadian Jeremy Hansen will be the first non-American to leave Earth’s orbit when he joins the Artemis II moon mission next year, officials revealed Monday.

Hansen, 47, will be one of four astronauts assigned to the 10-day mission that is scheduled for launch in November 2024, NASA and Canadian Space Agency officials said. If successful, this will be the first time humans get that close to the moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago.

Astronauts last visited the moon in December 1972, closing out the Apollo program. So far, 24 men — all Americans — have visited the moon and half of those have walked on it.

The mission around the moon and back will take approximately 10 days. The return trip alone will take about four days.

It builds on the success of Artemis I, an unmanned flight, that travelled on a 1.4 million mile journey beyond the moon, returning to Earth after 25 days last December.

That mission took place to ensure safe re-entry, descent, splashdown, and recovery using the new Orion spacecraft so NASA is ready for Artemis II when a crew is onboard.

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While the space agency plans to send four astronauts around the moon in 2024, it wants to attempt a  lunar landing as early as 2025, with the launch of Artemis III.

With the Artemis missions, NASA aims to investigate more of the lunar surface with the plan to build a sustainable presence on the moon. The end goal is to go to Mars by the late 2030s.

More to come.

— with files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and The Canadian Press

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