Meet the Artemis crew for NASA's first moon mission in more than half a century

NASA's four-person Artemis II crew — including a woman, a person of color and a Canadian — will fly a nearly 10-day out-and-back mission around the moon that will not land but will travel farther into space than Apollo flights and provide new views of the lunar far side.

The Artemis II flight will be NASA's first lunar mission in over 50 years and is framed as a step toward future moon landings. The crew of four will not land on the moon or enter lunar orbit; instead they will fly an out-and-back mission that goes thousands of miles farther from Earth than the Apollo missions. The team reflects a more diverse astronaut corps than in the Apollo era, and none of the four were alive during the original moon program. The mission is scheduled as a nearly 10-day trip under the leadership of a veteran NASA astronaut. Crew and mission details: - Mission type: nearly 10-day out-and-back lunar flyby; no lunar landing or lunar orbit is planned for this flight. - Commander Reid Wiseman, 50, is a retired Navy captain and former NASA chief astronaut who previously spent more than five months on the International Space Station and is leading the mission. - Pilot Victor Glover, 49, is a Navy captain and a Black astronaut who has one prior spaceflight to the International Space Station and speaks about the mission's broader significance. - Mission specialist Christina Koch, 47, is an electrical engineer who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days) and participated in the first all-female spacewalk. - Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50, is a fighter pilot and physicist making his first spaceflight and serving as Canada's representative on the crew. Summary: The flight is an out-and-back lunar flyby intended to travel farther into space than Apollo missions and to provide new views of the lunar far side, while highlighting a more diverse astronaut corps. It is described as a step toward later operations, with a practice docking mission planned for 2027 and a follow-on moon landing effort discussed for 2028.