We recently wrote about the announcement by the US space agency of the astronaut candidates who will take part in the NASA Artemis missions to bring the human being back to the Moon. Now comes another news concerning the composition of the team that will make up the second mission! There will not only be US astronauts but at least one astronaut will be Canadian (CSA).

A Canadian astronaut aboard NASA Artemis II

Let’s briefly remember that, if all goes as planned, the first mission will be unmanned and will be used to test SLS and the Orion capsule. In the second mission, however, there will be a human crew but there will be no landing on the Moon (it will however come to orbit around the satellite). Finally it will be the third mission that will see both a human crew and the landing effective on the lunar soil , perhaps in 2024 (although the date currently looks like “optimistic” ).

The Canadian space agency has announced that in NASA Artemis II there will therefore be a component “non-US” . The third mission, the most important in terms of prestige at an international level, should instead have an all-American crew (considering that NASA is the major contributor to these missions).

The choice of having a Canadian astronaut is due to the realization by the CSA of the robotic arm Canadarm3 which will be connected to the Lunar Gateway. This kind of technology is currently tested and successfully used for some time on board the ISS (International Space Station).

This is therefore a CSA-NASA exchange that could also open the doors to astronauts from other space agencies (ESA or JAXA, for example) for missions following the third. Considering the complexity of the project and its costs, it seems that the return to the Moon will increasingly be a joint operation which will make it possible to reduce costs for individual states / agencies. In all in the name of science and human exploration.