NASA and the Canadian Space Agency to announce which astronauts will orbit the moon

On Monday, the first group of astronauts to return to the moon since 1972 will be announced.

The astronauts will be part of the Artemis II mission, where they will orbit the moon. The mission will include three people from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

When NASA has a roster 41 active astronautsjust there four active Canadian astronauts: Jeremy Hansen, Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons, Joshua Kutryk and David Saint-Jacques.

The announcement will be made at 11 am ET.

It is part of NASA’s Artemis program that will return humans to the lunar surface by 2025, including the first woman and the first human race. 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 Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew capsule, launched in November on a 25-day mission around the moon.

Saint-Jacques and Hansen joined the astronaut corps in 2009, with Saint-Jacques spending 204 days on the International Space Station in 2018–2019. This is Canada’s longest mission to date.

Sidey-Gibbons and Kutryk were recruited in 2017 and since then, the pair have been training intensively for their upcoming mission.

On March 16, the CSA updated its logo, saying it “incorporates this new chapter with a modern identification symbol.”

CBC will provide extensive coverage of the astronaut announcement on CBC.ca and the News Network.