The crew for the 2024 Artemis II mission, which is NASA's first manned moon mission in over 50 years, includes the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first Canadian assigned to a lunar mission, making it a historic crew.
Multinational initiative: The Artemis program is a multinational initiative between American, Canadian, Japanese, and European aerospace agencies, aimed at establishing a "long-term presence at the moon."
Scientific discoveries: NASA's Artemis II mission is expected to present new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry and academic partnerships, and pave the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration.
selection: The four-member crew for the Artemis II mission, including Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, were selected from a pool of 41 active astronauts. Crew
Previous space experience: Three of the crew members (Wiseman, Glover, and Koch) are veterans of space travel from the US and will be making their second trip into space with the Artemis flight.
Record holders: Christina Hammock Koch holds the record for the longest single spaceflight conducted by a woman, and she participated in the first all-female spacewalks.
First person of colour: Victor Glover is set to become the first person of colour to participate in a moon voyage. He recently piloted the 2021 SpaceX Crew-1 mission, serving as second in command on the flight.
Canadian astronaut: Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian astronaut to join a lunar flight, is a former fighter pilot who will be making his first trip into space.
Significant departure: The Artemis II trip will take the crew more than 2.2 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) as they loop around the moon, marking the closest lunar approach since the Apollo 17 mission, a significant departure from recent decades when NASA had focused on manned exploration in low-Earth orbit.
Future plans: If the Artemis II mission proves successful, NASA plans to launch a third Artemis flight, which is slated to include a landing on the moon's surface. The third mission is also expected to carry a female astronaut and an astronaut of color.