Oluwanifemi Ojo
NASA announced on Monday the selection of the first female astronauts and first African American to be assigned to a lunar mission.
They will be part of the four-member team that will make the first crewed trip around the moon in over 50 years, known as the Artemis II lunar flyby, which is expected to take place as early as next year.
The 44-year old engineer, Christina Koch, who holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and has participated in NASA’s first three all-female spacewalks, was named as a mission specialist.
A U.S. Navy aviator, Victor Glover, a U.S. Navy aviator who has conducted four spacewalks, will be the pilot of the mission and the first Black astronaut to be sent to the moon.
The mission commander, Reid Wiseman, is a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot. Also, a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel and the first Canadian ever chosen for a flight to the moon, Jeremy Hansen, will serve as a mission specialist.
All three NASA astronauts are experienced space explorers who have previously served on the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, Hansen is a spaceflight rookie astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency.
The announcement was made during a public event held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and attended by journalists, elementary school students, and leaders from the space industry.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on stage, “The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is humanity’s crew. We are going.”
White House said, “U.S. President Joe Biden privately called the four on Sunday to congratulate them.”
The upcoming Artemis II mission will include a crew and will be the first flight of a program that was created after the Apollo program.
The objective of this program is to send astronauts to the moon’s surface later in the 2020s and to eventually establish a permanent base there that will serve as a launching point for future missions to Mars.
It’s important to note that this won’t be the first time humans have landed on the moon.
