Before this decade is over we will see the first European step on the Moon. This was confirmed after the launch by Euclid Josef Aschbacher, head of the European Space Agency (ESA), in an interview with Space.com, where he assured that there will be a seat reserved for one of our astronauts both on Artemis 4 (mission immediately after the first with which our satellite will be visited again and which is scheduled for 2028) as in Artemis 5 (which, if everything goes according to plan, will take off in 2029). Due to its participation in NASA's Artemis Program, ESA has a third flight that has not yet been finalized into a mission. “I am very happy and very proud that NASA trusts Europe as a partner to design critical elements,” said Aschbacher. ESA has built the service module, the equipment that supplies electricity and other resources for NASA's Orion spacecraft, the astronauts' vehicle in this 'lunar reconquest'. In addition, ESA is supplying (in partnership with Japan) a habitat module and a refueling module for the Gateway space station, which will orbit the Moon and serve as a sort of 'service area' between Earth and our satellite. Because of all this help, ESA had negotiated with NASA three seats on the Artemis Program missions, but it had not been specified what they would be. Until now. European astronauts fly to the ISS For now, European astronauts continue to fly periodically to the International Space Station (ISS). Next up will be Danish Andreas Mogensen, who will be part of the crew of SpaceX's Crew-7 mission on August 15. They are also in training with the private company Axiom Space, created by the Spanish Michael López-Alegría, whose Ax-3 mission, scheduled for next November, will include Swedish astronaut Marcus Wandt. Related News The daily life of a standard astronaut Yes We could soon see a Spaniard travel to space again Patricia Biosca If everything goes as planned, the first astronaut of the new generation, of which the Spaniard Pablo Álvarez is a part, will travel to the International Space Station in 2026. The last one will do so before 2030, at which time the infrastructure will stop functioning. In addition, the six new astronaut candidates (among whom is the Spaniard Pablo Álvarez) are preparing for their first missions to the ISS. This new generation has the first parastronaut, John McFall, a former British trauma surgeon who suffered a leg amputation, and who is also scheduled to fly into space. "We have to do a study to find out if it is necessary to make adaptations to the space station interface," said the head of ESA for Space.com. Aschbacher added that ESA member states continue to discuss whether to develop their own spacecraft and infrastructure for future missions and even for their own space exploration program. These topics will be discussed during its Space Summit, which will be held on November 6 and 7. One step away from returning to the Moon The Artemis Program is already underway: in November 2022, NASA launched Artemis 1, an uncrewed mission around the Moon to test the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket. The first manned mission, Artemis 2, is expected to take off in November 2024. Its objective will not yet be to land on the moon, but to orbit our satellite and return. Its crew, named in April 2023, will be the first to head to the Moon in 50 years and will include the first woman and first black man on a lunar mission. the first people to head towards the moon in more than 50 years. The launch of the program will come with Artemis 3: in this mission the astronauts will set foot on the Moon. It is not expected to be launched before 2025 (some even postpone it to 2026), waiting for the Starship system, SpaceX's rocket and moon lander, to be ready. Therefore, the release dates of Artemis 4 and 5 could be delayed, depending on when Artemis 3 lands and its success. MORE INFORMATION news No A Harvard scientist claims to have found remains of an extraterrestrial spacecraft news No The genome of a butterfly extinct due to humans opens the door to its 'resurrection' The Artemis program will serve, among other things, to condition the Moon as a testing ground before the great objective: for Humanity to set foot on Mars for the first time. A very ambitious idea that, however, still raises many problems of various kinds (for example, how to endure a journey that will last years or how to cope with the adverse conditions of the Red Planet). Even so, NASA has proposed that the first person to set foot on our neighbor will do so within the next decade.
