NASA's Artemis 2 set for Moon launch in November 2024 as race to space begins

After a successful unmanned test flight, NASA is on schedule to launch a crewed mission around the Moon in November of next year, the US space agency announced Tuesday. The Artemis programme, which intends to send people back to the Moon for the first time since the illustrious Apollo missions concluded in 1972, has received an update from NASA authorities.

NASA Marshall in a tweet said, "Ready for the final join? The @NASA_SLS core stage for #Artemis II is in position for its final join. The engine section is the last of five major elements that is needed to connect the stage into one major structure."

An unmanned Orion spacecraft returned to Earth safely in December after completing the first Artemis mission's more than 25-day circumnavigation of the Moon. A four-person crew will travel around the Moon on Artemis 2 in late November 2024, but they won't touch down there.

'There is nothing holding us up for the lauch of Artemis 2,' says NASA official

"We're looking forward to that crew flying on Artemis 2," NASA associate administrator Jim Free told reporters. "Right now there's nothing holding us up based on what we learned on Artemis 1." Later this year, NASA will make the information of the crew of Artemis 2 public. One of them will be a Canadian is all that is currently known about them. Astronauts will set foot on the Moon's south pole for the first time during Artemis 3, which is anticipated for around a year after Artemis 2.

NASA's Exploration Groun Systems in another tweet said, "What a view! Helicopters and Navy divers surrounded the @NASA_Orion spacecraft after it splashed down at 12:40 p.m. EST Dec. 11, 2022, in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon. Orion was recovered by @NASA, U.S. Navy, and Department of Defense partners."

"Our plan has always been 12 months, but there are significant developments that have to occur," Free cautioned. "We're still sticking with that 12 months, but we're always looking at the development of all the hardware that has to come together for that," he added. 

According to Free, SpaceX's lunar lander and spacesuits are among the things that are still in the development stage. NASA wants to establish a long-lasting human presence on the Moon before starting a lengthy mission to Mars.

NASA intends to send a woman and a person of colour to the Moon for the first time as part of the Artemis missions. The Moon has only been visited by 12 humans, all of whom are white men. Orion's journey around the Earth's orbiting satellite and back covered well over a million miles, a distance unequalled by any other inhabited spacecraft.