NASA has announced the four-member crew for the upcoming Artemis II mission to the moon, marking the agency’s first manned moon voyage in over half a century. The mission is part of the multinational Artemis program, which aims to establish a long-term presence at the moon. The crew includes three American veterans of space travel, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, as well as the first Canadian astronaut to join a lunar flight, Jeremy Hansen.
Scheduled for 2024, the 10-day flight will take the crew more than 2.2 million kilometres around the moon, marking the closest lunar approach since the Apollo 17 mission. While their voyage will not include a moonwalk, the Artemis II trip will take them 370,000 kilometres beyond the Earth’s surface, a significant departure from recent decades when NASA had focused on manned exploration in low-Earth orbit.
During the mission, the crew will demonstrate maneuvers and test the life-support systems aboard the partially reusable Orion spacecraft, a capsule designed for manned flight. If the mission is successful, NASA plans to launch a third Artemis flight, which is slated to include a landing on the moon’s surface. The Artemis III mission is also expected to carry a female astronaut and an astronaut of colour. Previously, all 12 members of the Apollo program to set foot on the moon were white men.
“This mission paves the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration and presents new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry and academic partnerships,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center, in a statement. She called the crew “the best of humanity”.
Christina Hammock Koch, who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight conducted by a woman, will be making her second trip into space with the Artemis flight. Victor Glover is set to become the first person of colour to participate in a moon voyage. Reid Wiseman has served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station, spending 165 days in orbit and logging nearly 13 hours as a lead spacewalker.
The Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, will be making his first trip into space after a career that includes time as a colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces. “It is not lost on any of us that the United States could choose to go back to the moon by themselves. But America has made a very deliberate choice over decades to curate a global team, and that, in my definition, is true leadership,” he said in a speech at the announcement.
The Artemis program is a joint initiative between American, Canadian, Japanese, and European aerospace agencies. Its first unmanned mission began in November 2022 after several months of delays. It successfully completed two lunar flybys before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreams — the Artemis Generation.”
The Artemis II mission is a significant step forward for human space exploration and offers exciting opportunities for scientific discovery and international collaboration. As NASA continues to prepare for its next giant leap, sending the first astronauts to Mars, the lessons learned from the Artemis flights will be invaluable.