() — NASA announced Monday the four astronauts – three Americans and one Canadian – who will orbit the Moon next year on the Artemis II mission, which will return humans to the deepest part of the solar system in five decades.
The mission commander is Reid Wiseman, a 47-year-old decorated naval aviator and test pilot who was first selected to be a NASA astronaut in 2009. Wiseman was chief of the astronaut office until November 2022. Although the chief you can’t fly while on the job, you can get the best flight assignments when you leave the job, a “recognized perk” of the job, according to former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman.
The pilot is Victor Glover, a 46-year-old naval aviator who returned to Earth from his first spaceflight in 2021 after piloting the second crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and spending nearly six months aboard the International Space Station. The veteran of four spacewalks earned a master’s degree in engineering while moonlighting as a test pilot.
The mission specialists are Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.
Koch, 44, has completed six spacewalks. She holds the record for the longest space flight by a woman, with a total of 328 days in space. Koch is also an electrical engineer and has helped develop scientific instruments for multiple NASA missions. She also spent a year at the South Pole, an arduous stay that could well prepare her for the intensity of a mission to the Moon.
Hansen, 47, was selected to be an astronaut for the Canadian Space Agency nearly 14 years ago, and this will be his first spaceflight mission. The 47-year-old fighter pilot recently became the first Canadian tasked with training a new class of NASA astronauts.
“The mission to the Moon will launch four pioneers, but it will carry more than just astronauts,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said in a statement. “Artemis II will carry the hopes of millions of people around the world. It will carry the aspirations of the NASA family who gaze at the moon each night knowing that their efforts will return us to the moon. And it will carry the dreams of the students who burn tabs in libraries and laboratories, preparing one day to support an Artemis mission.”
The launch of the mission is scheduled for November 2024.
