NASA has released the names of the four crew members of the Artemis II Mission, which will be the first manned trip around the moon since the Apollo program ended more than 50 years ago.
Victor Glover, an accomplished astronaut and pilot, will become the first black person to travel to the moon. Christina Koch, another NASA veteran who already set the record for the longest uninterrupted time spent in space by a woman, is also part of the team.
The crew of four is joined by Jeremy Hansen, who will become the first Canadian to orbit the moon, and Reid Wiseman, a former chief of NASA’s astronaut office.
‘This is a big day’
“Am I excited? Absolutely,” said Mrs. Koch. “We’re going to carry all your excitement, your aspirations, your dreams.”
Mr Wisemann, who will be the mission commander, said: “This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate.”
Artemis II becomes the first crewed flight of the pioneering program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon’s surface this decade and establishing a sustainable outpost there, creating a springboard to human exploration of Mars.
The goal of Artemis II flighta ten-day, 1.4 million-mile trip around the moon and back should demonstrate that all of Orion’s life support devices and other systems will operate as designed with astronauts on board in deep space.