At 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, 2026, the Orion spacecraft lifted off, heading toward Earth’s closest celestial neighbor. This launch is a component of NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission, set to make history by being the first crewed flight taking humans farther into space than ever before. Additionally, for the first time in over 50 years, astronauts will return to the moon to orbit it. If all proceeds as planned, the crew will be off for approximately 10 days, traveling about 4,700 miles, and will return to Earth on a free-fall path. But who are the courageous and daring crew members undertaking this expedition?<\/p>\n
NASA revealed the four crew members aboard Orion in 2023. They include: Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. Dubbed the \u201cnext generation of explorers,\u201d each crew member possesses unique expertise that will contribute to the mission’s success and the research conducted on board.<\/p>\n
Scroll down to discover more about each crew member. For updates on the Artemis II mission, stay connected via the NASA website.<\/p>\n
Meet the four crew members aboard the Orion spacecraft en route to the moon.<\/p>\n
Reid Wiseman, Commander<\/p>\n
A veteran of 27 years in the Navy, Reid Wiseman was chosen to become an astronaut by NASA in 2009 and, in 2014, completed a 165-day mission on the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Victor Glover, Pilot<\/p>\n
Victor Glover entered the astronaut program in 2013 while working as a Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Senate. As a Naval Aviator, he has served as a test pilot and accrued over 3,000 flight hours across more than 40 different aircraft.<\/p>\n
Christina Koch, Mission Specialist<\/p>\n
Christina Koch is a trailblazer and record breaker. She holds the record for the longest solo spaceflight by a woman, amassing a total of 328 days in space, and was involved in the first all-female spacewalk.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Hansen, Mission Specialist<\/p>\n
Jeremy Hansen is the first Canadian ever to travel to the moon. He previously served as a crew member of NEEMO 19, where he lived and worked on the ocean floor simulating deep-space exploration scenarios.<\/p>\n
NASA: Website | Instagram<\/p>\n
Source: Our Artemis Crew<\/p>\n
All images via NASA.<\/p>\n
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At 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, 2026, the Orion spacecraft lifted off, heading toward Earth’s closest celestial neighbor. This launch is a component of NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission, set to make history by being the first crewed flight taking humans farther into space than ever before. Additionally, for the first time in over 50 years, astronauts will return […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/555641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}