The NASA spacecraft is equipped with a service module provided by Europe to supply air, water, electricity, and temperature control to the capsule
Artemis II NASA mission will take four astronauts, including the first woman and the first Black man to walk on the lunar surface. All the crew is led by Reid Wiseman as commander and Victor Glover as pilot. This mission will test the Orion spacecraft and the SLS rocket, with the long-term goal of establishing inhabited colonies on the Moon and taking humans to Mars.
The names of the four astronauts who will participate in the Artemis II mission were announced this Monday. This NASA mission marks the first manned trip of the program aimed at taking humans to the Moon and Mars, led by the space agencies of the United States and Canada.
At the presentation, which took place at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the occupants of the Orion capsule were presented, consisting of three Americans and one Canadian, namely: Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.
Eventually, the importance of this mission lies in that for the first time, a woman and a black man will have the opportunity to step on the Moon, something that has not happened since the last Apollo 17 mission more than half a century ago, and that had only been carried out by white men in the past.
The chosen ones
Jeremy Hansen: Mission Specialist. Representing Canada, Jeremy Hansen will make his first spaceflight as an Artemis II astronaut. In 2017, Hansen became the first Canadian to lead a NASA astronaut class, directing the training of astronaut candidates from the United States and Canada.
Christina Koch: Mission Specialist. NASA astronaut Christina Koch will also be traveling to space for the second time on the Artemis II mission. Koch served as a flight engineer aboard the space station during Expeditions 59, 60, and 61. Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, with a total of 328 days in space, and participated in the first all-female spacewalks.
Victor Glover: Pilot. NASA astronaut Victor Glover will make his second spaceflight aboard the Artemis II mission. Glover served as a pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission, which landed on May 2, 2021, after 168 days in space. As a flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 64, he contributed to scientific research, technological demonstrations, and participated in four spacewalks.
Reid Wiseman: Commander. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman will serve as the commander for Artemis II mission. This will be Wiseman’s second trip to space. Previously, he served as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station for Expedition 41 in 2014. He has logged more than 165 days in space, including nearly 13 hours of spacewalks. Wiseman served as the Chief of the Astronaut Office from December 2020 until November 2022.
