NASA announces who will be the crew of Artemis 2, the first post-Apollo crewed lunar mission

It’s April already, which means NASA has shared the crew flying on Artemis 2. In an event at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, alongside numerous other NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) leaders, announced the four-person team.

Artemis 2 Crew:

• Reid Wiseman (NASA, Commander)
• Victor Glover (NASA, Pilot)
• Christina Koch (NASA, Mission Specialist 1)
• Jeremy Hansen (CSA, Mission Specialist 2)

The announcement comes four months after the overwhelmingly successful launch of Artemis 1, the first-ever launch of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. Artemis 2 will be the first crewed mission of that rocket, and the Orion spacecraft at its top is designed to carry crew to the Moon and even Mars.

The three NASA astronauts assigned for this flight will be the first from the agency to return to the Moon since Apollo. Each of the astronauts has flown once before in space. Wiseman flew once on a Soyuz to the ISS in 2014 and then served as NASA’s Chief Astronaut from 2020 to 2022. Glover flew on SpaceX’s first operational flight in 2020, and Koch spent a year in space between 2019 and 2020.

For Canada, this will be Hansen’s first flight to space and, of course, the first Canadian to go to the Moon. Hansen was selected in 2009 to be a part of the Canadian Astronaut Corp, and if Artemis 2 stays on schedule will be the second astronaut of the current corp to fly to space. Canada got the seat in an agreement with NASA to take part in building the Gateway with the Canada Arm 3 robotic arm.

Artemis 2 is set to launch in late 2024 if the schedule holds, but a delay to 2025 wouldn’t be a surprise. NASA announced last month that assembly of the Core Stage for Artemis 2 had been completed at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Next up for the Core Stage will be installing the four RS-25 engines before shipment to Kennedy Space Center.

Once all the components arrive in Florida, Kennedy’s Exploration Ground Systems teams will begin assembling the rocket.