Nasa aiming to send people back to the Moon in February

Artemis II Crew: left Christina Koch, back Victor Glover (pilot), front Reid Wiseman (commander), right Jeremy Hansen

Nasa says it is aiming to send astronauts on a ten-day trip around the Moon as soon as February 2026.

Called Artemis II, the mission is the second part of the Artemis programme, whose aim is to land astronauts on the Moon and eventually develop a base there.

It's been 50 years since any country has sent astronauts to the Moon, and Nasa wants to send four astronauts there and home, to test systems.

The four astronauts involved are Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, of Nasa and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.

Read on to find out more about the mission and let us know in the comments what you think.

Lead Artemis II flight director, Jeff Radigan explained that the crew would be flying further into space than anyone had been before.

"They're going at least 5,000 nautical miles (9,200 km) past the Moon, which is much higher than previous missions have gone," he told reporters.

The aim of the mission is to test the rocket and spacecraft's systems to prepare for a Moon landing, which will be Artemis III - part three of the project.

The astronauts will live in a capsule which will will be blasted into space by powerful rocket system, called the Space Launch System (SLS) which Nasa says is "pretty much stacked and ready to go".

They'll live and work in capsule called Orion, which sits on top of the SLS.

After the spacecraft goes around the Moon, the astronauts begin their four-day journey home, drawn back with the help of the Earth's gravity.

The astronauts will then begin one of the trickiest parts of the mission as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, and parachute back to the surface off the coast of California, in the US.

Everything you need to know about the Artemis project

Artemis is Nasa's first Moon mission in more than 50 years and is a three-part series of increasingly complex missions aimed at putting a man and a woman on the Moon.

The Artemis I mission didn't have any astronauts on board (although Shaun the sheep went) but was designed to fully test the Moon mission kit. It was successfully sent in orbit around the Moon in November 2022.

Artemis II takes it a step further with a crew on board, and will circle around the Moon before returning home while Artemis III plans to land Nasa astronauts on the Moon's surface.

The original plan was to have people walking on the Moon by the end of 2025, but the missions has been delayed multiple times.