She is the first female astronaut and the first African-American astronaut ever designated for a lunar mission. Christina Koch, an engineer who holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, was named mission specialist, while Victor Glover, a United States Navy aviator, was chosen as the pilot of Artemis II. NASA reported on Monday, October 3.
The other two crew members are Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian to be chosen for a flight to the Moon, as a mission specialist, and Reid Wiseman, a veteran of the International Space Station, named commander of the Artemis II mission. .
The Artemis II quartet was introduced during a televised press conference at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (Mission Control Base), Houston. They will be the first human beings to travel to the Moon, without landing there, since the last Apollo mission in 1972 – a prologue to the return of humans to lunar soil after half a century of absence.
With these appointments, NASA is thus getting ahead of its promise to send, for the next mission which must land on lunar soil, the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, when the Apollo program was there. took away 12 men, all white. The four astronauts were congratulated in a call Sunday by President Joe Biden, the White House said.
Testing technologies before a trip to Mars
The American space agency thus intends to sign in the long term the return of humans to the star and the establishment of a lasting lunar presence, by the construction of a base on the surface of the Moon and a space station in orbit. around her. Learning to live on the Moon must test all the technologies necessary for an even more complex journey: sending a crew to Mars.
The launch of Artemis II is currently scheduled for November 2024. The mission should last about ten days. The four astronauts will travel with NASA’s SLS rocket, the most powerful in the world today. They will take place on top of this rocket, in the Orion capsule, which will detach once in space and take them around the Moon. When they return, they will land on the ocean.
The SLS rocket has so far only flown once, on the Artemis I mission. more than twenty-five days. The capsule had successfully returned to Earth in December.
Top Secret Selection Process
All “active” astronauts (there are currently forty-one) were officially eligible to be part of Artemis II. The selection process was kept very secret. Reid Wiseman, eventually chosen as commander, was until recently chief of the astronaut office – a front-line position deciding the composition of the team. Before leaving his post, he said he was looking above all for technical expertise and team spirit among the lucky ones.
Unchosen astronauts can take comfort in hoping to be selected for Artemis III, which will be the first mission to land on the Moon. This mission is officially scheduled for the end of 2025, although the timing is very uncertain at this stage. A mission to Mars could be sent by 2040.
