Who are the Nasa astronauts going to the moon?

Nasa named the first woman and African American astronauts ever assigned to a lunar mission on Monday, announcing them as part of the four-person team chosen to travel on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.

The new crew also comprise the first Canadian astronaut on a lunar mission alongside three Americans chosen from a pool of 18 Nasa astronauts – nine women and nine men – for the Artemis programme in 2020.

The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight test will launch on the agency's powerful Space Launch System rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft's life-support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space, Nasa said in a press release.  

Read on to know more about the four astronauts for the Artemis II mission.

Christina Koch

Christina Koch is a 44-year-old engineer who already holds the record for longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and was part of Nasa's first three all-female spacewalks. She was named as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby expected as early as next year.

Koch will also make her second space journey on the Artemis II mission. She worked as a flight engineer on Expeditions 59, 60, and 61 of the International Space Station. Koch achieved a record for the longest solo female spaceflight of 328 days, , with a total of 328 days in space. Koch is also an an electrical engineer who helped develop scientific instruments for multiple Nasa mission. Koch, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, also spent a year at the South Pole, an arduous stay that could well prepare her for the intensity of a moon mission.

Victor Glover

Victor Glover, 46, is a US Navy aviator and veteran of four spacewalks who Nasa has designated as pilot of Artemis II. He will be the first Black astronaut ever to be sent on a lunar mission. Glover will embark on his second spaceflight after previously serving as pilot on Nasa's SpaceX Crew-1, which landed on 2 May 2, 2021, after completing 168 days in space. As a flight engineer during Expedition 64 aboard the space station, he contributed to scientific investigations, technology demonstrations, and four spacewalks.

Glover, who was born in Pomona, California, served in multiple military squadrons in the United States and Japan during the 2000s and finished test pilot training with the United States Air Force. In 2013, when he was selected for the Nasa astronaut corps, he was a legislative fellow in the United States Senate. Glover amassed 3,000 fly hours in over 40 aircraft, over 400 arrested carrier landings, and 24 combat missions.

Jeremy Hansen

Jeremy Hansen, 47, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force and the first Canadian selected for a mission to the moon, joins the crew as a mission specialist.

Hansen is making his first space mission as a representative of Canada. Hansen, a former fighter pilot and colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, earned a Bachelor of Science in space science from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and a Master of Science in physics from the same institution in 2000, with a research focus on Wide Field of View Satellite Tracking. He was one of two recruits chosen by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in May 2009 as part of the third Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign.

He has served as Capcom in Nasa's Mission Control Center at Johnson and, in 2017, became the first Canadian to be entrusted with leading a Nasa astronaut class, leading the training of astronaut candidates from the United States and Canada.

Reid Wiseman

Reid Wiseman, 47, an additional former US Navy fighter pilot, was assigned as the mission commander for the trip.

This will be Wiseman's second voyage into space. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, he served as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station for Expedition 41 from May to November 2014. Wiseman has logged more than 165 days in space, including nearly 13 hours as the lead spacewalker on two trips outside the orbital complex. Wiseman, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, served as chief of the Astronaut Office from December 2020 to November 2022 before this.

Wiseman was first selected to be a Nasa astronaut in 2009.