On Apr. 3, NASA announced the four astronauts who will crew the Artemis II. This is the first crewed lunar mission in over fifty years.
Artemis II is set to take off in November 2024. It will be the first crewed mission around the moon since NASA’s Apollo 17 in 1972. The mission will be crewed by NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Wiseman, a 47-year-old naval aviator and test pilot, will serve as the mission’s commander. Wiseman was selected for astronaut training in 2009. Later he completed a 165-day stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014. Wiseman also served as chief of NASA’s astronaut office until he stepped down in November 2022. This made him eligible for the Artemis II mission.
Glover, a 46-year-old naval aviator, will serve as the mission’s pilot. Glover piloted his first spaceflight in 2021, as part of the crew of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. He served aboard the ISS for six months during the same mission. He served in several military squadrons throughout the 2000s for both the U.S. and Japan, and completed test pilot training with the U.S. Air Force. He has logged over 3000 flight hours, having flown in more than 40 aircraft.
As part of the Artemis II crew, Glover will be the first black astronaut to participate in a crewed lunar mission.
Koch, 44, has been a part of six spacewalks, including the first all-female spacewalk in 2019. That same year, she broke the record for the longest duration in space by a woman. She spent 328 days aboard the ISS. Koch is an electrical engineer and has helped develop scientific instruments for multiple NASA missions. She also worked for the United States Antarctic Program from 2004 to 2007, and spent most of those years traveling across the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
With Artemis II, Koch will become the first woman astronaut to crew a lunar mission.
The CSA selected Hansen, a 47-year-old fighter pilot, for astronaut training in 2009. Hansen is one of only four active Canadian astronauts. In 2017, he became the first Canadian astronaut to be put in charge of training astronaut candidates for NASA. Artemis II will make him the first Canadian to travel in deep space.
“It’s so much more than the four names that have been announced,” Glover said during the crew announcement at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We need to celebrate this moment in human history. It is the next step in the journey that will get humanity to Mars.”
The crew’s journey is expected to take 10 days, according to NASA’s announcement. During that time, the spacecraft will circle around the moon to its far side, taking the crew further into space than any human before them. The mission will conclude with a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean.
Artemis II is the successor to the uncrewed Artemis I, which concluded in December 2022. Both are intended to pave the way for Artemis III in the coming decade, which NASA hopes will see a proper lunar landing and potentially pave the way for permanent lunar outposts.