NASA Names Astronauts to Circle the Moon on Artemis II Mission

NASA tapped astronauts Christina Koch and Victor Glover for a team of four people to ride around the moon on the Artemis II crewed mission next year.

NASA announces crew for its Artemis II mission (From left, Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Hammock Koch). (AP)

NASA tapped astronauts Christina Koch and Victor Glover for a team of four people to ride around the moon on the Artemis II crewed mission next year.

The pair will be joined by Canadian Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman on the flight, the space agency said Monday at an event in Houston. Wiseman, the former chief of the astronaut office, will be Artemis II's commander.

Koch, who was previously part of NASA's all-women spacewalk, will be the first woman to go to deep space. Glover, the ship's pilot, will be the first person of color.

The announcement brings NASA a step closer to a mission that will return humans to the vicinity of the moon for the first time since the Apollo program roughly five decades ago. Through Artemis, NASA plans to land the first woman, the first person of color and the first astronaut from another country on the moon.

Artemis II, which will perform a lunar flyby, is scheduled for next year. That will be followed by Artemis III, landing astronauts on the moon's surface, currently scheduled for 2025.