NASA announces four-member team of astronauts to travel to the Moon

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For the first time in five decades, NASA announced a team of four astronauts for its human spaceflight mission to the Moon.

An overview of the news

• The team of four astronauts will fly around the moon for a 10-day mission next year.

• NASA has announced the four astronauts who will go to lunar orbit and return with the Artemis 2 mission.

Who are these Artemis 2 astronauts?

• These four Artemis 2 astronauts are - Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch.

• NASA’s Reid Wiseman will be the commander of the Artemis 2 mission.

• Victor Glover will serve as the pilot for Artemis 2. Glover was previously the pilot of NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission.

• Jeremy Hansen will represent the Canadian Space Agency during the mission. 

• NASA astronaut Christina Koch will be the mission specialist for Artemis 3. 

• Koch visited the space station in 2019, where she was part of the first all-woman spacewalk in history. 

• The Artemis II flight team will have three American and one Canadian astronauts, the first since the historic Apollo mission ended in 1972.

Artemis 2 mission

• The Artemis 1 mission will allow NASA to test the foundation of its latest human space exploration capabilities.

• This includes the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and all associated ground systems.

• Artemis 2 will be the first crewed mission to test all of these.

About NASA 

• NASA was formed under the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 19, 1948, in place of its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

• NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

• Headquarters- Washington D.C.

• Administrator - Bill Nelson