On Monday, Bill Nelson, the chief of NASA, revealed the Artemis 2 mission’s crew. This will be more than 50 years after the last crewed lunar trip. The mission, which involves flying around the moon, will be carried out by four astronauts—three Americans and one Canadian.
The four scientists who will travel to the moon are Commander Reid Wiseman of NASA, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen.
Artemis 2: The mission includes the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission
The crewed mission includes the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission. Mission specialist Christina Koch is an engineer who currently claims the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight by a woman.
Victor Glover has been chosen as the Artemis 2 pilot. Glover took part in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule’s second crewed mission.
Hansen is the first Canadian to ever be selected for a lunar mission. Wiseman, a veteran of the International Space Station, was selected to lead the Artemis II expedition.
The Artemis 2 lunar expedition by NASA is scheduled for 2024. A lunar flyby involving the four astronauts will take place onboard an Orion spacecraft. Neither will the spacecraft penetrate the moon’s orbit nor will they make a lunar landing. Artemis 2 will be an eight-day mission and is the last test flight before Artemis 3 goes on a crewed mission in 2025 intending to land humans on the moon.