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(CNN) The astronauts who will lead the first manned lunar mission in 50 years were announced Monday to begin training for the historic Artemis II lunar flyby, which is scheduled to take off in November 2024.
The astronauts are NASA’s Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen.
Weisman is a 47-year-old Navy astronaut and test pilot who was selected as the first NASA astronaut in 2009. The Baltimore, Maryland native has his one-time experience on his 165-day space flight to the International Space Station. He was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2014. Most recently, Weisman served as head of the astronaut office before retiring in November 2022 and qualified for flight missions.
Wiseman will serve as commander of the Artemis II mission.
Hansen, 47, is a fighter pilot selected by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009 for astronaut training. Hansen is one of four active Canadian astronauts from London, Ontario, and recently became the first Canadian to lead an astronaut mission. Training for NASA’s new class of astronauts.
He becomes the first Canadian to travel to deep space.
Glover is a 46-year-old Navy aviator who will return to Earth from his first space flight in 2021 after piloting the SpaceX crew’s second manned flight. Nearly half a year on board the Dragon spacecraft and the International Space Station.grover
“That’s far more than the four names announced,” Glover said Monday at the announcement at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. is the next step in our journey to reach Mars.”
Born in Pomona, California, Glover served in several military squadrons in the United States and Japan in the 2000s and completed test pilot training in the United States Air Force. In 2013, he was serving as a member of the U.S. Senate when he was selected for NASA’s Astronaut Corps. Overall, Glover has logged 3,000 flight hours with his over 40 aircraft, over 400 carrier intercepted landings, and 24 combat missions.
Glover’s first mission to space was as part of the SpaceX Crew-1 team, which launched to the International Space Station in November 2020 and spent six months in an orbiting laboratory.
Koch, 44, is a veteran of six spacewalks, including the first women-only spacewalk in 2019. She holds the record for her longest single space flight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space. Koch is also an electrical engineer who has helped develop scientific instruments for multiple of her NASA missions. A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Koch also spent her year in Antarctica. This difficult stay was enough time for her to get ready for an intense lunar mission.
About this mission
The Artemis II mission builds on Artemis I, an unmanned test mission that will send NASA’s Orion capsule on a 1.4 million-mile voyage and orbit the Moon in December. The space agency considers the mission a success and continues to work to verify all data collected.
The Artemis II lunar flyby mission crew includes (from left) NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reed Weisman (foreground), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
If all goes according to plan, Artemis II will take off around November 2024. The crew will be anchored inside the Orion spacecraft and launched atop a NASA-developed Space Launch System rocket from her Kennedy Space Center at NASA in Florida.
The journey is expected to last about 10 days, and although the exact distance has yet to be determined, the crew could cross the moon and go farther than any human has traveled in history.
“The exact distance from the Moon will depend on the date of launch and the relative distance of the Moon from Earth at the time of the mission,” NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton said in an email.
After orbiting the Moon, the spacecraft will return to Earth and land in the Pacific Ocean.
Artemis II is expected to pave the way for the Artemis III mission, which NASA has vowed to put the first woman and man of color on the moon. It is also the first time humans have landed on the Moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972.
The Artemis III mission is scheduled to take off in this decade. However, much of the technology required for the mission is still under development, such as the spacesuits for walking on the moon and the lunar lander that will carry astronauts to the moon.
NASA has targeted a 2025 launch date for Artemis III, but NASA’s inspector general has already said delays will likely push the mission beyond 2026.
Space agencies have been aiming to return people to the moon for over a decade. The Artemis program will establish a permanent lunar outpost that will allow astronauts to live and work deep in space for the long term, as NASA and its partners chart a path to send the first humans to Mars. Designed to pave the way.
choose an astronaut
Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, declined to provide details to CNN about the selection process. It emphasized the diversity of the Artemis II crew, including men and women, as well as the staff of .
“I can tell you, they still have everything right,” Waichi said.
In an interview with CNN’s Ed Lavandera, Koch said the group learned they had been selected weeks ago.
“We were all sent to a meeting on our calendar under another pretext that didn’t sound as lofty as what was scheduled,” said Koch. was very late for the meeting.”
She said the offer had left her “silent.”
“It’s really an honor,” she added.
Interviews with the four astronauts will air on CNN This Morning on Tuesdays beginning at 6:00 a.m. ET.
CNN’s Christine Fisher contributed to this article.
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