Four for the moon! NASA names Artemis 2 astronaut crew for 1st lunar mission since Apollo

HOUSTON — NASA has named its first astronaut crew bound for the moon in more than 50 years.

The space agency on Monday (April 3) announced the four astronauts who will launch on its Artemis 2 mission (opens in new tab) to fly around the moon. The crew is expected to become the first moon voyagers since the Apollo program.

The Artemis 2 crew includes commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Hansen is a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut flying under an agreement between the U.S. and Canada. He will be the first non-American to leave Earth orbit and fly to the moon.

Related: Everything you need to know about NASA’s Artemis program

The Artemis 2 crew was announced on Monday during an event held at Ellington Field, home to NASA’s aircraft operations located near the Johnson Space Center here in Houston. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other agency leaders were joined on stage by almost all of the members of the active astronaut corps, less the three currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Targeted for launch in late 2024, Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will lift off aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will mark the first time that both the capsule and booster will fly with astronauts aboard and only the second launch of both vehicles together after the uncrewed Artemis 1 test flight (opens in new tab) in 2022.

The 10-day Artemis 2 mission will not orbit or land on the moon, but instead follow a hybrid free return trajectory. Orion will use its European-built service module to perform multiple maneuvers to raise its orbit around Earth and eventually place the crew on a lunar free return trajectory in which Earth’s gravity will naturally pull the spacecraft back home after flying by the moon. 

Before leaving Earth orbit for the moon, the crew will use the SLS upper stage (called the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or ICPS) as a target for proximity operations, testing their ability to manually fly Orion.

The crew will also test the spacecraft’s life support, communication and navigation systems before heading off for the moon. The Artemis 2 crew will come within 6,479 miles (10,427 kilometers) of the lunar surface and travel 6,400 miles (10,300 km) beyond the far side of the moon. From this vantage point — farther than any humans have ever traveled (opens in new tab) into deep space — they will be able to see both Earth and the moon from Orion’s windows (opens in new tab).

The Artemis 2 mission will end with Orion splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, where U.S. Navy ships and NASA teams will be staged to meet and recover the crew and spacecraft. A successful flight will set up NASA for Artemis 3, the first mission to return humans to the lunar surface with the first woman and the next American slated to land at the moon’s south pole (opens in new tab) as soon as late 2025.

Now with the Artemis 2 crew assigned, NASA will begin training sessions both with the astronauts alone and, as the launch nears, integrated with the mission control team that will monitor the mission from the ground. In March, engineers completed integrating all five major structures for the Artemis 2 SLS core stage. The Orion spacecraft, its European service module, the ICPS and SLS solid rocket segments are already at the Kennedy Space Center, where they are being prepared for flight or are awaiting being stacked as part of the launch vehicle.

The four Artemis 2 crew members were selected from the current active corps of 41 NASA astronauts and four CSA astronauts. The decision fell to the chief of the astronaut office Joe Acaba (opens in new tab), head of the flight operations directorate Norm Knight and Vanessa Wyche, director of the Johnson Space Center.

The crew includes three experienced astronauts who have flown in space before and one for which Artemis 2 will be his first launch.

Wiseman, 47, spent 165 days in Earth orbit on his first mission, a 2014 flight to the ISS. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, and former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, he was selected for NASA’s 20th astronaut class in 2009. Wiseman recently served as chief of NASA’s astronaut office (opens in new tab) from 2020 to 2022.

Glover, 46, became a NASA astronaut in 2013. He flew as pilot of SpaceX’s first operational crewed spaceflight (opens in new tab) (Crew-1) and logged 167 days on the ISS in 2021. Born in Pomona, California, he is an engineer and captain in the U.S. Navy. Glover was the first Black astronaut to serve on a space station crew.

Koch, 44, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A member of NASA’s 21st astronaut class selected in 2013, Koch set a record aboard the International Space Station for the single longest mission by a woman (opens in new tab) at 328 days. During that 2019 stay, she was also one-half of the first-ever all-female spacewalk (opens in new tab). Koch is an engineer and former U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) station chief.

Hansen, 47, was chosen to join Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. A colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he was born in London, Ontario. Though Artemis 2 will be his first time in space, Hansen served as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater lab in 2014 and took a turn as a “cavenaut” as part of the European Space Agency’s CAVES astronaut training course the year prior.

Hansen’s seat on Artemis 2 is part of the “Canada-U.S. Gateway Treaty,” (opens in new tab) an agreement between NASA and CSA that will see the latter oversee and operate all of the external robotics needed to operate the human-tended Gateway platform still to be built in lunar orbit. The treaty also includes a Canadian astronaut flying to the Gateway as part of a future Artemis mission’s crew.

Related: NASA’s Gateway moon-orbiting space station explained in pictures

Although the Artemis 2 crew is NASA’s first moon crew announced in more than 50 years and they are expected to be the next people to fly to Earth’s nearest neighbor, there are at least two other crewed lunar missions currently planned. SpaceX, NASA’s partner for the Artemis 3 human landing system (HLS or lunar lander), has booked two privately funded spaceflights to fly around the moon using its Starship spacecraft that is now under development.

The dearMoon project (opens in new tab), underwritten by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, named its crew of eight artists in December 2022. Two months earlier, U.S. businessman and first “space tourist” Dennis Tito revealed his and his wife’s intentions to fly on SpaceX’s second circumlunar mission (opens in new tab). The schedule for both launches is still being planned.

Should Artemis 2 launch first, then Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will become the 25th through 28th humans to voyage to the moon. The first astronauts to visit the moon were the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders in 1968.

NASA intends the Artemis program to lead to a sustainable human presence on and around the moon, where astronauts can learn the skills and techniques needed to send astronauts to Mars.

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