In the same way that Artemis II serves as the first crewed flight to test technology for future missions to the moon and Mars, Apollo 8, which launched on Dec. 21, 1968, also served as a lunar landing preparation mission, preceding Apollo 11's July 1969 lunar landing.

NASA's Apollo 8 mission was the first to orbit the moon. No US spacecraft has returned to the moon since 1972, but that's all about to change.

Like Apollo 8 in 1968, NASA's Artemis 2 mission from Florida will send a crew of astronauts around the moon and back without landing.

Keith Wright from Dorset, worked on Apollo 11 - the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon.

On May 25 1961, before a joint session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy committed the US to the goal, before the decade was out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon during NASA's Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972.

Three Americans and one Canadian will embark on a 10-day journey as part of the Artemis II mission, the first to be crewed beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era.