Daijiworld Media Network – New Delhi
New Delhi, Jan 31: NASA is set to make history again as astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen prepare for the Artemis II mission, a 10-day journey that will take them farther from Earth than any humans have gone since Apollo 13 in 1970. While the crew will not land on the moon, their flight will mark a new era in lunar exploration and pave the way for the Artemis III mission, which aims to put astronauts on the lunar surface in 2027.
The crew entered quarantine in Houston last week as part of standard prelaunch protocols and are scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, about six days before launch. NASA has indicated that liftoff could occur as early as February 8, though a firm date has not yet been set.
Crew Roles and Backgrounds:
• Reid Wiseman will command the mission. A Navy veteran and astronaut since 2009, Wiseman spent six months aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014. A single father of two daughters, he acknowledged the personal sacrifices required for spaceflight but emphasized the historic nature of the mission.
• Victor Glover, pilot of Artemis II, was part of SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon flight to the ISS in 2020. A U.S. Navy captain and test pilot, Glover balances his career with family life alongside his wife and four children.
• Christina Koch, a veteran of a 328-day mission aboard the ISS in 2019 and participant in NASA’s first all-female spacewalk, will serve as a mission specialist. She expressed excitement for the mission even without walking on the lunar surface.
• Jeremy Hansen, making his spaceflight debut, will be the first Canadian to travel around the moon. A former fighter pilot and colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, Hansen has three children and was selected by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009.
Mission Objectives:
Artemis II will be the first crewed flight of NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule. The mission will test docking procedures, conduct science experiments, and evaluate life-support systems aboard Orion, serving as a critical precursor to Artemis III, which plans a lunar landing near the moon’s south pole.
The astronauts plan to bring personal mementos into space, including letters, family heirlooms, a Bible, and a moon pendant, to keep their loved ones connected to this historic journey.
Reflecting on the mission, Wiseman said, “We’ve always looked at the moon and said, ‘We’ve been there.’ But for our generation, for the Artemis generation, they’re going to look at the moon now and go, ‘We are there.’”
Koch summed up the crew’s shared purpose: “For us, success is boots on the moon in Artemis III. Success is Artemis 100, whenever that is. And we really define everything off of that.”
The Artemis II mission represents not just a technological milestone, but a symbolic step forward for international lunar exploration, bringing NASA and its partners closer to humanity’s next giant leap.