Meet the Four Astronauts Heading on NASA’s Artemis II Moon Mission

Both space enthusiasts and casual observers have been watching the news about NASA's planned Artemis II moon mission with great curiosity. That's because this manned flight may take humans the furthest they've ever been into space before. But, they are not only leading a potentially record-breaking flight past the moon, they will also be taking the first major step towards a victory in the world's modern space race, which is to see which country will be the first to make settlement on the moon.

With all of the excitement about the launch, and the world watching with bated breath to see if the mission will be successful and allow NASA to test the tools and technology it will need in order to begin additional planned missions to the moon to begin work on a permanent settlement, many people are finding themselves curious about the humans picked to spearhead this operation.

Now many are asking who the astronauts are aboard Artemis II, and how they ended up picked for this mission.

NASA announced the astronauts for the Artemis II mission in 2023, introducing the four crewmembers to the rest of the world. They include Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.

The space agency called them the "next generation of explorers" in the introductions it shared, highlighting each of the astronauts' specific skills and training. For example, Wiseman has been an astronaut since 2009, logging more than 165 days in space.

Glover has previous piloting experience and even served in the role during NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission. Koch and Hansen both bring a ton of expertise as well, with Koch having previously served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS), and she set the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days in space.

As for Hansen, his experience lies at the other end of the spectrum, since he was a crew member of NEEMO 19, where he lived at the bottom of the ocean.

NASA plans to launch the Artemis II craft on April 1, 2026. The launch is scheduled to take place at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, where the astronauts will board the craft and begin their launch sequence.

Once the craft takes off, it will take under nine minutes for it to reach outer space. From there, the ship will travel to the moon, without ever actually landing on it. Instead, the crew will spend 10 days on what is being called a "flyby" mission, according to the New York Times.

The crew will use this time to test things like deep space communications and the tools they will need to build a settlement on the moon. While the entire mission will take 10 days to reach the moon and loop around it, it sounds like they will arrive within their planned orbit in just a few days.