Nasa Artemis II mission: Five things we learned from the astronauts

The team have been training together for over two and a half years

There's been some big space news this week, with Nasa announcing its plans to send humans back to the Moon in 2026.

The space agency has hopes the four astronauts selected for the 10 day mission will make the journey as soon as February next year.

Called Artemis II, the mission is the second part of the Artemis programme, which is focused on returning astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972.

The four astronauts who will be carrying out the mission are commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, of Nasa and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.

They spoke to the world's press on Wednesday - here are some of the key takeaways.

We now know the name of the spacecraft

(From left to right) Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman will be heading to space for the Artemis II mission

The name of the Artemis II spacecraft was revealed at the press conference.

"We started with a lot of names," the mission's commander Reid Wiseman said during the event.

"We are bringing together the world, we are bringing together an amazing workforce and they are bringing together an amazing vehicle. And at the end of all that, when you squeeze it all down, it created magic.

"So we're going to fly around the Moon in the spacecraft 'Integrity'."

The crew have been training hard for life in a small space

The crew will spend 10 days together in the Artemis II spacecraft

When asked about how the four-man crew will manage living together in such a small space for 10 days, Christina Koch shared that the tight arrangements were something her and her fellow astronauts have already been working on.

"We've been training together for over two and a half years now," she said.

"We are comfortable working really closely together. We actually are also committed to a system of train like you fly. So we take opportunities to build in closeness together where we have the reality of that lack of ability to unplug, that lack of privacy when you want it the most.

"When we're taking that four hour nap at the end of a 37-hour day, that's when we're going to want to just go to our own room and put on some headphones, but we won't have that luxury."

The crew have also been prepping for what to do if things break down

The crew revealed they've been preparing for any circumstances when things stop working or break while they're in space.

"The most important thing we're working on refining and honing is, how do we handle the unknown?" explained Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

"We have this great group of simulation trainers who come up with these evil tests for us. We'll be sitting in the sim (simulator), all our mission controllers are in mission control and then stuff will just start breaking.

"Then we'll just have to see what we can create to come home."

There are hopes the mission will reveal a side of the Moon never seen before

The crew hope to see parts of the Moon never seen before

Humans have successfully been to the Moon in the past and there have been questions about what new things the Artemis II mission will reveal, something the astronauts themselves have wondered.

"There's a very likely chance we'll see 60 percent of the far side that has never been seen by human eyes," said Reid Wiseman.

The astronauts will be taking lots of images of the Moon while they're in space

The spacecraft has six windows and two will be pointed directly at the Moon.

"We'll rotate through there, taking different observations, different times, sharing that workload taking photos," said Jeremy Hansen.

"Some of us will be taking a step back, to try and capture those moments for you with video cameras so we can share what it's like while we're flying around the Moon and observing this, and capture some of those feelings and sentiments."