The Artemis II lunar mission will be crewed by four astronauts, all with extensive experience in space, except for the Canadian member who is embarking on his first spaceflight. The team consists of NASA veterans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Mission commander Reid Wiseman, aged 50, has spent 165 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) during a 2014 expedition, traveling there via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. A former U.S. Navy test pilot, Wiseman also served as NASA’s chief astronaut before being appointed to lead Artemis II.
Pilot Victor Glover, 49, accumulated 168 days in orbit starting in 2020 as the pilot of NASA’s Crew-1 mission, the first full ISS expedition utilizing SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. His prior career in the U.S. Navy involved flying over 40 different aircraft, including combat and test-pilot roles. Notably, Glover is the first Black astronaut selected for a lunar mission and has completed four spacewalks.
Mission specialist Christina Koch, 47, holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, having spent 328 days aboard the ISS in 2019. She participated in NASA’s first three all-female spacewalks. With a background in electrical engineering and physics, Koch has also worked as a NASA engineer and conducted extensive research in Antarctica. She is the first woman to be part of a moon-bound crew.
Jeremy Hansen, 50, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, is the first Canadian and first non-U.S. citizen to join a lunar mission. Although Artemis II marks his inaugural spaceflight, Hansen was selected for Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. His inclusion underscores the enduring U.S.–Canadian collaboration in human space exploration, highlighted by Canada’s contributions to robotics technology aboard the ISS.
