‘This is humanity’s crew:’ NASA names 4 astronauts in Artemis II moon mission

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – “This is humanity’s crew.”

NASA officials announced Monday the four crew members who will fly in the Artemis II mission in 2024 around the moon.

The crew is made up of three astronauts from the U.S. and one from Canada. The four members of the Artemis II moon mission are Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.

The three Americans and one Canadian will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.

Artemis is the long-awaited NASA program to take Americans back to the moon and possibly to Mars.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Artemis II is significant and a “demonstration of our ability to push the boundaries of human achievement.”

“Why? Because it’s in our DNA. It’s part of us. It’s who we are as adventurers, as explorers, as frontiers people and throughout history, humankind has gazed up at the celestial body, the moon, with wonder,” Nelson said.

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And the Artemis II mission “will carry more than astronauts.”

“Artemis II will carry the hopes of millions of people around the world. It will carry the aspirations of the NASA family, who glance up at the moon every night, knowing their efforts will return us to the moon. And it will carry the dreams of students who burned the midnight oil in libraries and laboratories, preparing one day to support an Artemis mission,” Nelson said. “And it’ll carry the inspiration of the children who imagine themselves soaring in the skies. We will show what is possible when we dare to reach distance cosmic shores.”

Meet the astronauts:

Christina Koch

Jeremy Hansen

Victor Glover

Reid Wiseman

This follows NASA’s delayed but successful Artemis I mission, which launched on Nov. 16, 2022, after multiple setbacks.

The Artemis II astronauts will use a new spacesuit to explore the moon. Its prototype was revealed during a demonstration in Texas last week. Axiom Space in June of last year was chosen along with Collins Aerospace to develop NASA’s next generation of spacesuits, instructed to have units ready for demonstration in a “relative environment” — either on the International Space Station or in a simulated environment — by 2025. Come September, Axiom Space secured the contract to tailor the Artemis III mission.

The new suit — black in color with blue and orange accents, a scheme which the panel explained would be primarily white in its final version due to thermal necessities — was shown to be more flexible than the equipment last used to walk the moon in the 1970s.

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