Three Americans and one Canadian will be the first to head back to the moon in nearly fifty years. In November of next year, they will be traveling around the moon on a ten day mission to test the crafts capabilities.
NASA officials have announced Monday that American astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will take off on the Artemis II mission, a lunar flyby mission, scheduled to launch late next year.
This big announcement comes on the heels of the successful Artemis I flight, the first time test launch of the massive Space Launch System rocket. This mission was also responsible for deploying the Orion crew capsule, a vessel without any astronauts on board, in orbit around the moon on a month-long info finding journey.
If all goes well with Artemis II, the goal is to achieve lunar touchdown in 2025.
Reid Wiseman, 47, is a decorated naval aviator and test pilot who joined NASA’s ranks in 2009. He’s completed one prior spaceflight, a 165-day trip to the International Space Station, and until last year was chief of the astronaut office. His stepping down from the position made him eligible to once again take a space flight.
Christina Koch, 44, has made six spacewalks in her career and holds the record for the longest single space flight for a woman – 328 days in space. Koch has also spent over a year in Antarctica, as well as having designed instruments used on multiple NASA missions.
Victor Glover, 46, is also a former naval aviator who has spent six months aboard the International Space Station. He was responsible for piloting the second crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Jeremy Hansen, 47, is a former fighter pilot, and was selected for astronaut training by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. He is the first Canadian to be in charge of training the new class of NASA astronauts.