The new pioneers: NASA has just announced which astronauts will fly to the moon for the first time in half a century

The Artemis program is progressing little by little. With the NASA’s latest announcement, the astronauts who will make up the first manned mission, Artemis IIThey already have first and last names. They could become the furthest people from Earth in history.

In an event from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the US space agency and its Canadian counterpart (CSA) have presented the list of the four astronauts who will travel on the Artemis II mission, the first manned mission of the Artemis program and the first manned mission to the moon in more than 50 years.

The astronauts they will not get to step on our satellite in this mission, but they will only orbit it, in a similar way as the inaugural mission of the program did between the months of November and December of last year. Thanks to its distant retrograde orbit (DRO), the Orion capsule broke a record: becoming the furthest habitable capsule in the history of space exploration.

If the mission follows this same path, the team of astronauts could move more than 430,000 kilometers from Earth. Until now this mark is held by the astronauts of the Apollo 13 mission, who caressed the 400,000 kilometer line.

Four astronauts, three Americans and one Canadian, will fly the mission.

Christina Hammock Koch (Mission Specialist 1): NASA astronaut since 2013. She has been a flight engineer on three missions of missions (59, 60 and 61) of the International Space Station. Born in the state of Michigan, she has numerous awards in her field such as the Neil Armstrong Award for Excellence or the Congressional Medal for Antarctic Service. She will be the first woman on a lunar mission and she already holds the record for being the woman with the most consecutive days in space (328).

Jeremy Roger Hansen (Mission Specialist 2): Londoner of the Province of Ontario and CSA representative, will be the first Canadian on a lunar mission. He began his training as a pilot at the age of 12 within the air cadet program and it is precisely in the flight of military fighters where the experience of the Canadian stands out. He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Victor J. Glover, Jr. (Pilot): NASA astronaut also since 2013. He was a pioneer by becoming second in command on the first manned mission of SpaceX, Crew-1. He also has experience as a military pilot with 3,000 accumulated flight hours. He will be the first person of African descent to carry out a lunar mission. Among his distinctions, Glover has the Defense Superior Service Medal or the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

G. Reid Wiseman (Commander): NASA astronaut since 2009, also has experience aboard the ISS on mission 41 in 2014. On this mission, he broke a productivity record with 82 hours of work invested in a single week in different experiments. They conducted a total of 300 rehearsals on this mission. Wiseman is a native of the state of Maryland, and has various medals of distinction in the military field.

The astronauts will travel in an Orion capsule powered by the SLS (Space Launch System), the most powerful rocket created by humanity. The rocket was successfully tested on the Artemis I mission, although on that occasion the capsule was only inhabited by dummies.

The numerous delays in this maiden mission have drawn an uncertain schedule when estimating when this mission will fly. The most ambitious plans considered in the latest draft leaked a few months ago placed the mission in 2024, although in these same documents 2025 was also considered as the year for the return of humans to lunar orbit.

These estimates are, in any case, prior to the first flight of the program, so they may already be out of date. The crew members’ announcement has not been accompanied by any comment on the date of the flight.

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Image | POT