A Nasa facility in Alabama that developed the giant rocket for the Apollo programme in the 1960s will play a key role in sending astronauts down to the Moon’s surface in 2024.
The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville will lead the development of a vehicle that will land astronauts on the body for the first time since 1972.
The decision was announced by Nasa’s administrator Jim Bridenstine.
But it’s a disappointment for Texas, which was in the running.
The White House wants to send a man and a woman to the South Pole of the Moon in five years, under a programme called Artemis.
Huntsville in northern Alabama is known as “Rocket City”, because of its long association with the space programme. It was here that the huge Saturn V launcher, which lofted humans into orbit during the Apollo programme in the 1960s and 70s, was designed, built and tested.
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