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NASA on Monday named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission, introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.
Christina Koch, an engineer who already holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and was part of NASA’s first three all-female spacewalks, was named as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby expected as early as next year.
She will be joined by Victor Glover, a US Navy aviator and veteran of four spacewalks who NASA has designated as pilot of Artemis II. He will be the first Black astronaut ever to be sent on a lunar mission.
Rounding out the four-member crew are Jeremy Hansen, a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel and first Canadian ever chosen for a flight to the moon, as a mission specialist, and Reid Wiseman, another former US Navy fighter pilot, named as Artemis II mission commander.
All three NASA astronauts chosen for the Artemis II mission are veterans of previous expeditions aboard the International Space Station. Hansen is a spaceflight rookie.
The Artemis II quartet were introduced at a pep rally-like event attended by journalists, local elementary school students and space industry leaders, televised from Houston at the Johnson Space Center, NASA’s mission control base.
“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on stage. “This is humanity’s crew.”
Artemis II will mark the debut crewed flight – but not the first lunar landing – of an Apollo successor program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon’s surface later this decade and ultimately establishing a sustainable outpost there as…
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