Marc Garneau, the first Canadian in space, has long awaited the day when the next astronaut will receive the honorary title of first Canadian.
His wait is over. Artemis II is scheduled to lift off as early as November 2024 and will be the first mission to put astronauts in orbit around the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
Who will be the lucky one? The world will know on Monday when NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announce the four astronauts – three Americans and one Canadian – who will take part in the next phase of an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon.
The Canadian Astronaut Corps currently consists of four people, including David Saint-Jacques, a Montreal-based astrophysicist and doctor and the only member of the group to have ever been in space.
Mr Saint-Jacques, 53, flew to the International Space Station in 2018. He was selected in 2009 along with Ontarian Jeremy Hansen, 47, a Colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
In 2017, two Albertans joined the ranks of the group: test pilot and Royal Canadian Air Force lieutenant colonel Joshua Kutryk, 41, and Jennifer Sidey, 34, a mechanical engineer and lecturer at Cambridge University.
Artemis astronauts will orbit the Earth before ascending into space for a figure eight maneuver around the moon, making Canada and the United States the only two countries to have observed the moon’s dark side.
“When I think back to 1984, when I first flew, we didn’t know what could happen after that,” Marc Garneau recalls. That Canada now has the opportunity to become the second country to send an astronaut on a moon mission is extraordinary. »
If it could, it would return to orbit “in the blink of an eye.” “Having flown three times, I consider myself to be blessed beyond all reasonable expectations,” says the former astronaut and retired Quebec MP – at the age of 74 he finally gave up his seat in the House of Commons almost three weeks ago.
The Artemis II mission is the result of hard work and significant investment, explains Gordon Osinski, director of the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University in Ontario. He has spent most of the past week in Houston participating in simulations to better understand how the geological work that future astronauts will need to perform on the lunar surface is performed.
“I can do field geology on Earth with an instrument that looks like something out of Star Trek that tells me the chemistry of a rock. We couldn’t have imagined that 50 years ago,” he says happily.
Then there are the Canadarms, the articulated remote manipulators that have become a staple of International Space Station missions and a source of national pride for countless Canadians.
The United States trusts us enough to “put the lives of their astronauts in our hands,” Professor Osinski said, saying that this was certainly a factor in the decision to reserve a spot for a Canadian.
The third and final Artemis mission will see a man and woman set foot on the moon in 2025 to pave the way to Mars.
“We’re going back to the moon. The moon is not nothing, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said last week. It is Canada that is doing great things on the world stage. »
This may ultimately be Artemis II’s greatest legacy for Canada: to inspire the next generation of astronauts, just as Apollo did long ago.
This time, however, the pictures from the trip will be spectacular.