The first woman and the first African American assigned to a lunar mission were among the four astronauts named by NASA on Monday. They will fly around the moon in the latter part of next year.
Three Americans and one Canadian, the nation’s first moon crew in 50 years, were unveiled during a ceremony in Houston, which also serves as the location of Mission Control.
The four astronauts will launch atop a Space Launch System rocket from the Kennedy Space Center no early than late 2024 to become the first to fly NASA’s Orion spacecraft. They will fly around the moon instead of landing or even entering lunar orbit, setting up two more people to land on the moon a year from now.Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander, will be joined by Christina Koch, the world record holder for the longest space journey by a woman, Victor Glover, an African American naval aviator, and Jeremy Hansen, a veteran fighter pilot and the crew’s lone space novice from Canada. It’s a huge day today. We have a lot to be happy about, and it goes much beyond the four names that have been revealed, according to Glover.
The first crew in NASA’s new moon program to be named Artemis after Apollo’s mythical twin sister and the first lunar crew to include a non-American. An empty Orion spacecraft made a long-awaited practice flight to the moon and back in late last year.
