The next crew bound for the Moon is ready to go, and this time there are four names on the list.
Artemis II is set to lift off as early as April 1. The mission will send four astronauts from the United States and Canada on an approximately 10-day flight around the Moon to test the Orion spacecraft, which will land on the Moon in future missions.
The crew will not land on the Moon on Artemis II, but the mission will take them thousands of kilometres deeper into space than the Apollo astronauts went for the original Moon landings of the 1960s and 1970s.
“We are getting very, very close [to launch], and we are ready,” Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a press conference over the weekend. “All of our operations have been going smoothly, it’s been going very well.”
Ahead of launch, the astronauts are reviewing emergency procedures and spending time with their families at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. They are also staying in quarantine to make sure they stay healthy before liftoff, which could be any day between April 1 and 6.
Commander Reid Wiseman is a retired Navy captain who was serving as NASA’s chief astronaut three years ago when he was asked to lead the crew. Wiseman previously spent more than five months at the International Space Station in 2014 as part of the 40th launch. He said his teenage daughters had “zero interest” in seeing him launch again.
“We talked about it and I said, ‘Look, of all the people on planet Earth right now, there are four people that are in a position to go fly around the Moon,” he said. “I cannot say no to that opportunity.”
Wiseman said the toughest part is not leaving his family, but “it’s the stress that I’m putting on them.” He has been a single father since 2020, when his wife Carroll passed away from cancer.
Wiseman was selected to join NASA as one of nine candidates in 2009 to start astronaut training after his military career. At the time, he was a lieutenant commander in the US Navy. He has often said he wanted to be an astronaut after going to a Space Shuttle launch in person as a child.
Pilot Victor Glover has his own pre-launch routine. Before any launch, he listens to two songs, Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” and Marvin Gaye’s “Make Me Wanna Holler” from the white-dominated Apollo era. Glover said they “capture what we did well, what we did poorly.”
Glover, one of NASA’s few Black astronauts, said he sees his place on the mission as a “force for good,” and a chance to inspire others to get into space.
In 2018, Glover was assigned to fly on the first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, where he stayed for more than six months. Local media reported at the time that he was the first African-American crew member to stay on the ISS.
In his previous career as a fighter pilot for the US Army, Glover logged over 3,000 flight hours in 40 different types of aircraft and flew in 24 combat missions. Before this launch, he said he has spent more time preparing his four daughters for his launch than he has preparing himself.
Mission specialist Christina Koch, a 47-year-old electrical engineer from North Carolina, holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days.
That mission began when she blasted off to the International Space Station on March 14, 2019. During that time, Koch was also part of the all-female spacewalk, when she and Jessica Meir left the ISS to carry out upgrades to the station’s power systems and physics observatories.
According to Reuters, Koch’s 328-day mission is used to study the physical, biological and mental effects of long-term space travel on women.
More than any one individual, Artemis II is “about celebrating the fact that we’ve arrived to this place in history” where women can fly to the Moon, she said.
Koch spent a year at a South Pole research station before getting the call from NASA. Between that and her time in space, she said she feels she’s “inoculated” most of her family and friends.
“So far, I haven’t gotten too many nerves from folks. Maybe my dog, but I’ve reassured her that it’s only 10 days. It’s not going to be as long as last time.”
Canadian mission specialist Jeremy Hansen is making his space debut. He will be the first Canadian to ever go to the Moon.
“Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t feel a lot of personal pressure,” Hanson told the Associated Press.
Hansen, 50, grew up on a farm in rural Canada before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force as a captain. He piloted aircraft such as the CF-18 from his base in Alberta. He had been promoted to the rank of colonel before getting the call from the Canadian Space Agency in 2009.
He also served as an “aquanaut” on a NASA mission to the Aquarius underwater laboratory in 2014, living underwater for seven days to simulate conditions in space and test NASA’s remote guidance systems.
“When I walk out, and I look at the moon now, it looks and feels a little bit farther than it used to be,” he said. “I just understand in the details how much harder it is than I thought it was, watching videos of it.”
