NASA has named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission. Introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly as early as next year. On what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.
The US space agency NASA has announced the first crewed moon mission in five decades. For this historic Artemis II mission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced on Monday names of four astronauts.
In a first, the American space agency has selected a woman Christina Koch and a Black man Victor Glover to voyage into deep space.
Other two astronauts part of the crew are Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen. Hansen is a Canadian Space Agency astronaut. The crew of these four will be the first to fly the Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024.
Astronaut’s details
Reid Wiseman (47): A US Navy pilot who served for a time as the head of Nasa’s astronaut office. He’s flown one previous space mission, to the International Space station in 2015.
Victor Glover (46): A US Navy test pilot. He joined Nasa in 2013 and made his first spaceflight in 2020. He was the first African American to stay on the space station for an extended period of six months.
Christina Koch (44): An electrical engineer. She holds the record for longest continuous time in space by a woman, of 328 days. With Nasa astronaut Jessica Meir she participated in the first all-female spacewalk in October 2019.
Jeremy Hansen (47): Before joining the Canadian Space Agency, he was a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He has yet to fly in space.
President Joe Biden spoke with the four astronauts and their families on Sunday. In a tweet Monday, Biden said the mission “will inspire the next generation of explorers, and show every child – in America, in Canada, and across the world – that if they can dream it, they can be it.”
