Cape Canaveral: America’s space agency NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-NASA) has announced the names of four astronauts of its Artemis II mission to be sent to orbit the Moon next year. Almost 50 years after completing the manned mission to the moon through the Apollo mission, NASA is once again trying to send humans to the moon. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on Monday revealed the names of the members of the Artemis II mission during an event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Canadian space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be sent on the Artemis II mission next year, NASA said. For the first time, NASA has selected a woman and an African-American as astronauts for its mission to the Moon. The passengers of the Artemis II mission will not land on the Moon and will only orbit it and return. Through the Artemis mission, NASA is trying to establish a long-term presence facility on the Moon.
- Christina Koch is an electrical engineer, who has been a part of NASA’s first three spacewalks. He was assigned as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby.
- Victor Glover is a US Navy pilot and veteran of four spacewalks. He is included as the pilot of Artemis II. He will be the first black astronaut to be sent on the moon mission. This mission will be his second space mission.
- Reid Wiseman is a former US Navy fighter pilot. Reed Wiseman has been inducted as mission commander. This will be his second trip to space.
- Jeremy Hansen is a Colonel in the Canadian Army and a former fighter pilot. Jeremy Hansen is also part of the Artemis II mission crew. The first Canadian selected for a flight to the Moon as a mission specialist.
The Artemis missions aim to establish facilities for the permanent habitation of astronauts on the lunar surface later this decade. Which will serve as a permanent outpost for future discoveries on Mars. The Artemis I mission was completed in December 2022. In which a 25-day test flight of NASA’s powerful next-generation mega-rocket and its new Orion spacecraft was completed. The purpose of the 10-day Artemis II mission around the Moon is to prove that the instruments and other systems of the Orion rocket are capable of performing the designed tasks in deep space with astronauts aboard. After more than 50 years of ‘The Apollo mission’, for the first time, a human will go to the moon. During the Apollo missions, NASA sent 24 astronauts to the Moon from 1968 to 1972.
