Hyderabad, April 1 -- The countdown has begun for Mission Artemis II, the US attempt to resume its manned journey, after 54 years, to the Moon on April 1, from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Space Force, on Florida's Atlantic coast.

The effort by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) will be to send four astronauts on a 10-day journey to circle the Moon without landing or entering orbit. The team is unique in the sense that it consists of the first woman astronaut, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, the first person of colour, and Jeremy Hansen, the first non-American.

Though India is not part of the Artemis programme, it has signed the Artemis Accords as the 27th nation with the US to continue civil exploratio...