These four astronauts are set to get onboard NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, which will send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since its famous Apollo 17 trip in 1972
Four astronauts will be heading off in the first NASA mission to the moon in more than half a century, with a dress rehearsal today.
Artemis ll is NASA’s mission to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 closed out that famous moon exploration programme in 1972.
And now the four astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, are returning although they won’t land, their mission is to journey around the moon and back.
NASA has had delayed the astronauts’ trip to the moon because of near-freezing temperatures expected at the launch site – and they won’t being taking off now before February 8 which is two days later than planned.
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A fuelling test of the 98m moon rocket was also planned for last Saturday, but called everything off due to the weather and so now the critical dress rehearsal will happen today.
The delay leaves NASA with only three days until February 11 to send four astronauts around the moon and back, before having to wait until March.
“Any additional delays would result in a day for day change,” NASA said in a statement. Heaters are keeping the Orion capsule warm atop the rocket, officials said, and rocket-purging systems are also being adapted to the cold.
Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew remain in quarantine in Houston and their arrival at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida is uncertain.
Artemis ll crew
Reid Wiseman
Reid Wiseman is a 27-year Navy veteran, a pilot, a father and an engineer. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2009 and served as Flight Engineer aboard the International Space Station for Expedition 41 from May through November of 2014.
During the 165-day mission, Reid and his crewmates completed over 300 scientific experiments in areas such as human physiology, medicine, physical science, Earth science and astrophysics. This was Reid’s first spaceflight, which also included almost 13 hours as lead spacewalker during two trips outside the orbital complex.
He served as chief of the astronaut office from 2020 through 2022. Wiseman has been assigned as Commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission.
Victor J. Glover
Victor J. Glover was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 and is currently assigned as the pilot of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon.
In 2018, Glover was assigned to his first spaceflight mission, as Crew-1 Pilot, the first post-certification mission of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft – the second crewed flight for that vehicle – and as an Expedition 64/65 Flight Engineer aboard the International Space Station. Glover spent 168 days (Nov. 16, 2020 to May 2, 2021) in space, completing 4 spacewalks, and several scientific, maintenance, and outreach activities.
Christina Koch
Christina Koch is an explorer and engineer who became astronaut in 2013 and her previous experience in spaceflight saw her living and working on the International Space Station for almost all of 2019 in Expeditions 59, 60, and 61. For this mission, she flew on the Russian Soyuz rocket and trained extensively in Russia.
She has spent a total of 328 consecutive days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks. After this spaceflight and before being assigned to Artemis II, she served as Branch Chief of the Assigned Crew Branch in the Astronaut Office and did a rotation as Assistant for Technical Integration for the Centre Director at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre.
Before becoming an astronaut, Christina’s experience spanned both space science mission instrument development and remote scientific field engineering in the Antarctic and Arctic. Her hobbies include surfing, rock and ice climbing, programming, community service, triathlons, yoga, backpacking, woodworking, photography and travel.
Jeremy Hansen
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen is the first person from the country to venture to the moon. Born in 1976, in London, Ontario, and raised on a farm until moving to Ingersoll, where he went to school, Colonel Hansen is married with three children. He enjoys sailboat cruising and racing, rock climbing and mountain biking.
He was a fighter pilot before being recruited by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009 and two years later he began working at the Mission Control Centre as capcom — the voice between the ground and the International Space Station.
In 2017, Jeremy became the first Canadian to be entrusted with leading a NASA astronaut class, which means that he was in charge of the training astronaut candidates from the United States and Canada.
Meanwhile, another complication for the mission is the need to launch a fresh crew to the International Space Station as soon as possible, a trip accelerated because of the last crew’s early return for medical reasons.
The moonshot will take priority if it can get off by February 11, the last possible launch date for the month, mission managers have said.
If that happens, the next station crew will have to wait until the Artemis astronauts are back on Earth before launching later in the month.
“It couldn’t be cooler that they’re in quarantine and we’re in quarantine, and we’re trying to launch two rockets roughly around the same time,” NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, part of the next station crew, said. “It’s a pretty exciting time to be part of NASA.”
