Artemis II astronauts bring experience to NASA's moon mission

Four astronauts launched on a crewed Artemis II flight around the Moon this week; the team includes three space station veterans and a Canadian who will be the first from his country to travel beyond low‑Earth orbit.

Four astronauts have launched on Artemis II, a crewed test flight that will loop around the Moon. The crew — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — trained for several years for a relatively short, nine- to ten-day mission. The flight is the first crewed launch of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and the first crewed Orion capsule flight. Agencies describe the mission as a test of the spacecraft and its systems and as a step toward planned moon landings and a lunar base near the moon's south pole. Mission details: - Reid Wiseman is the mission commander and a former naval aviator who has served on the International Space Station and completed spacewalks; he is a single parent to two daughters. - Victor Glover is the pilot, a veteran Navy F/A-18 pilot who previously served as pilot on a Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station and has extensive flight experience. - Christina Koch is a veteran of long-duration station missions and spacewalks and will be part of the first crewed mission to go around the Moon that includes a woman among its astronauts. - Jeremy Hansen is the first Canadian selected to fly beyond low‑Earth orbit and will be the first Canadian to travel around the Moon. - The mission will perform system checks in Earth orbit and then proceed on a lunar flyby to test Orion's systems, including manual piloting and docking simulations. - NASA and partners present the flight as a test that helps prepare for a projected crewed lunar landing and later construction activities around the Moon. Summary: The Artemis II flight is a short crewed test mission intended to exercise the Space Launch System and Orion with astronauts aboard and to gather data ahead of future lunar surface plans. If all planned checks proceed, the crew will continue to a loop around the Moon and return to Earth after the mission period; specific operational updates and next milestones are being reported by mission teams as the flight progresses.