From first woman to black astronaut - Meet NASA’s crew behind its 2024 moon mission

Christina Koch will be the first woman to fly around the moon. In 2013, she was chosen to be a NASA astronaut. On the International Space Station (ISS), she performed the duties of a flight engineer. Koch took part in the first all-female spacewalks and set a record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, spending a total of 328 days in space. She will be serving as the ‘Mission Specialist’ during this Artemis II mission.

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Victor Glover has been named the NASA Artemis II mission's Pilot. While working as a Legislative Fellow in the US Senate in 2013, Glover was selected as an astronaut. He worked on the International Space Station as a flight engineer as well.

Glover, the first black person to be named in a lunar mission, is a naval aviator with test flight expertise in the F/A-18 Hornet, Super Hornet, and EA-18G Growler.

Reid Wiseman has been named as Commander of NASA's Artemis II mission. From May to November 2014, Reid Wiseman worked as a flight engineer on board the International Space Station. Over 300 scientific experiments in fields like human physiology, medicine, physical science, Earth science, and astrophysics were carried out by Reid and his crewmates during the 165-day journey.

As the first Canadian to visit the Moon, Jeremy Hansen will make history. This Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut will be serving as the ‘Mission Specialist’ on the Artemis II mission.

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More than 50 years after the iconic Apollo missions concluded in 1972, NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon as part of the Artemis programme in 2024.

To eventually send a mission to Mars, the US space agency wants to create a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. The 10-day Artemis II voyage will put NASA's powerful Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft's life support systems to the test.