NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have announced the four lucky astronauts who will go on a trip around the Moon on board Artemis II. This will be the first crewed mission on NASA’s journey to set up a permanent base on the Moon for science and exploration using Artemis. The agencies revealed who the crew members will be on Monday, during an event at Ellington Field, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The crew are: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen. They will work as a team to pull off an impressive set of demonstrations during this flight test.
The Artemis II flight test, which will last about 10 days, will be launched on NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket to test the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems and prove the skills and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space.
The flight, which will build on the successful unmanned Artemis I mission completed in December, will prepare the way for the landing of the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon through the Artemis program, opening up opportunities for future missions of long-term human exploration to the Moon and, later, to Mars. This is NASA’s “Moon to Mars” approach to exploration.
