NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have announced the four astronauts who will participate in the upcoming Artemis II mission to make a trip around the moon next year. The crew will consist of three US astronauts—Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman—and one Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen. Wiseman, 47, will be the mission commander, while Glover, 46, will be the pilot. Koch and Hansen, 43 and 47, will be the mission specialists.
The Artemis II mission will be the first manned mission aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft and the first to launch on the new Space Launch System rocket. The mission will last approximately 10 days, during which the four astronauts will confirm that all of Orion’s systems perform within their design parameters with people aboard in a real deep space environment. This test will pave the way for the first woman and the next man to land on the surface of the moon on the Artemis III mission.
Bill Nelson, the NASA Administrator, announced that “over the course of the Artemis missions, the first woman and the first person of color will make giant leaps on the lunar surface.” The Artemis program includes a total of four missions, which will cost approximately $4.1 billion. According to an audit by NASA’s Office of Inspector General, the program will cost about $93 billion by 2025. Christina Koch and Victor Glover are expected to be the candidates to land on the satellite as part of the Artemis III mission.