On April 3, NASA announced the selected astronaut crew for the Artemis II mission, planned to launch in November 2024. The team consists of Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen. This crew assignment is the latest step towards NASA’s return to the Moon within the Artemis program. For the first time, a woman (Koch), a person of color (Glover), and a Canadian (Hansen) are participating in a mission to the Moon.

Although there have been no crewed lunar missions since the Apollo program concluded in 1972, the team is well experienced in space. Commander Wiseman served on the International Space Station for seven months in 2014 before working as chief of the Astronaut Office from December 2020 until November 2022. Pilot Glover served as pilot aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 in 2021, logging 168 days in space. Mission Specialist Koch served on the International Space Station and holds the record for the longest single spaceflight for a woman at 328 consecutive days. Although this will be Mission Specialist Hansen’s first spaceflight, he was selected as an astronaut recruit in 2009 by the Canadian Space Agency, worked at NASA Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center, and led combined American and Canadian astronaut training since 2017.

This crew will complete a series of tests aboard the Orion capsule, focusing on testing the life support systems of the Orion capsule, gathering data regarding astronauts’ radiation exposure so far from Earth’s magnetic field, and maneuvering the Orion capsule in space. These tests will provide critical feedback on the capabilities of the Artemis spaceflight hardware to reliably transport humans to and from the lunar surface in future landing missions. READ MORE