NASA Exploration of the Moon 2024: Agency to Send Astronauts on Lunar Flyby Mission for the First Time After 50 Years

NASA is determined to make huge progress in its moon exploration this year. The U.S. space agency reportedly plans to send astronauts for a lunar flyby mission.

NASA's Lunar Flyby Mission in 2024

NASA is preparing to undertake its most intricate and dangerous project in many years with the launch of Artemis II in November, which will send four humans into a lunar orbit. More than half a century has passed before anyone has journeyed deeper into the solar system than the lunar fly-by mission.

Since the space race of the 20th century, during the Cold War, no human has ventured beyond the region of space beyond Earth's immediate orbit, making it a historic achievement.

This expedition will travel around the moon, passing near its surface but never setting foot on it. It will expand upon NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft's successful unmanned test flight in late 2022.

NASA's Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency will be the four astronauts on board. Koch is going to be the first female member of a lunar mission.

The launch of Artemis III, which seeks to put humans on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, will be made possible if Artemis II is successful.

The last successful lunar flyby was Zond 8, which launched on Oct. 20, 1970, and returned to Earth a week later. It is often referred to as L-1 No. 14. It was the final circumlunar spacecraft in the Soviet Union's Zond program.

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International Astronaut For NASA's Moon Landing

NASA is determined to leave China and Russia behind in their race to explore the moon. A deal between NASA and Whitehouse revealed that a foreign astronaut would join the American astronauts before the end of the decade for its moon landing mission.

The announcement was made during Vice President Kamala Harris' third meeting of the National Space Council in Washington, D.C., during the Biden administration.

Both the participating country's identity and the international moonwalker's name were still unknown. Subsequently, a NASA representative said personnel would be allocated closer to the lunar landing missions and that no assurances had been made to any other country.

NASA has been deploying international astronauts on space missions for a long time. Jeremy Hansen from Canada will circle the Moon alongside three American astronauts in around a year.

If another team could land on the moon, it would be the first lunar landing by astronauts in more than 50 years. The mission is unlikely to occur before 2027.

All 12 moonwalkers were US citizens during NASA's Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. The latest lunar exploration mission of the space agency is called Artemis, after the fabled twin sister of Apollo.

According to Hansen, involving international partners "is not only sincerely appreciated, but it is urgently needed in the world today."