NASA teams up with ESA to send humans to Moon by 2021

Image credits: NASA/Neil Armstrong

New Delhi: Two of the world’s biggest space agencies - the ESA and Nasa are teaming up to take humans to the moon within the next few years.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and aerospace company Airbus have agreed with NASA to build a module for a second, manned mission that will fly around the moon as early as 2021, which will be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

ESA and Airbus had already delivered a propulsion and supply module for an unmanned flight of NASA's new Orion spacecraft next year.

Mankind hadn't gone beyond a low orbit around Earth since 1972, when NASA ended its Apollo program.

The manned Orion mission will take humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years. NASA's Orion capsule is also aimed at taking astronauts to Mars and asteroids in the following years.

NASA said Orion will carry astronauts into deep space and then return them home to Earth.

Crew size and composition of the mission will be determined closer to launch.