Washington (AFP)

Eight rocket launches and a mini-station in lunar orbit by 2024: the boss of NASA presented Thursday the calendar of the program "Artemis" which will bring astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972.

The administrator of the US space agency has confirmed that Artemis 1 would be an unmanned mission around the Moon, planned for 2020. Then will come Artemis 2, mission around the Moon with astronauts on board, "in about 2022" .

Finally, Artemis 3 will take astronauts to the moon, the first woman to walk the lunar ground in 2024 - it would be the equivalent of the Apollo 11 mission, which took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July 1969.

These three Artemis missions will be launched by the largest rocket of all time, the Space Launch System (SLS), built at the moment but whose development is much delayed, to the point that the first planned flight of 2020 should be shifted , according to many experts. At its summit will be the inhabited capsule Orion.

To these missions "100% Nasa" will be added five deliveries of the elements of the "Gateway", the mini-station in lunar orbit that will await the astronauts and will serve as a stage point.

These five launches will be carried out between 2022 and 2024 by private space companies, which NASA will remunerate.

The station will initially be tiny: a propulsion / energy element, and a small dwelling unit. In 2024, astronauts coming from Earth will moor there.

Then they will descend on the moon aboard a vehicle called LG, which will have been delivered to the station beforehand. Part of the lander will remain on the Moon, and another will allow them to take off again to reach the station, where astronauts can go back in the Orion ship and return to Earth.

Jim Bridenstine announced Thursday that NASA has chosen the Maxar firm to build the first module of the station, the one that will provide energy, thanks to large solar panels.

In the coming months, NASA will have to choose who will build the stringer. All major aerospace groups, such as Boeing or Lockheed Martin, as well as new entrants like Blue Origin, are on the line.

"We will not own the equipment, we will buy a service," said Jim Bridenstine of the stringer. "The goal is to go fast".

"We are not building a new International Space Station," he warned. "Our ultimate goal is to go to Mars, not to be stuck on the moon."

? 2019 AFP