NASA Artemis astronauts enter final preparations for upcoming Moon mission

Four astronauts chosen for NASA’s Artemis II mission are preparing to cross the next threshold in the push to return humans to the Moon: arrival in Florida and the final sprint of pre-launch work for the first crewed journey to deep space in more than five decades.

Commander Reid Wiseman, Mission Pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch will launch alongside Canadian astronaut Colonel Jeremy Hansen from Kennedy Space Center as soon as 1 April, riding atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. They will travel inside an Orion crew capsule designed to carry people beyond Earth and into lunar space.

The flight is expected to last roughly ten days, during which the crew will complete a fast loop around the Moon and then head back to Earth.

Boeing will serve as the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, Northrop Grumman will build the rocket’s solid-fuel boosters, and Lockheed Martin will produce the Orion spacecraft.

The launch could go ahead on 1 April

Artemis II will not attempt a lunar landing, but it will take astronauts farther from Earth than any previous human spaceflight. The mission will evaluate Orion’s life-support systems, navigation and communications capabilities, and the performance of the heat shield during the spacecraft’s return to Earth.

The crew has spent more than two years preparing since NASA named them in 2023. After entering standard pre-flight quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on 18 March, they are now set to relocate to NASA’s Astronaut Crew Quarters in Florida before launch.

For Glover, the mission will be a historic first as he becomes the first black astronaut to travel into the Moon’s vicinity. Koch will follow as the first woman to reach that region, while Colonel Hansen will become the first non-American to go beyond low Earth orbit toward the Moon.

Except for Col Hansen, all members of the Artemis II crew have flown in space before. Wiseman told reporters last year that the astronauts were prepared for all outcomes as they pursued the mission’s testing objectives.

“When we get off the planet, we might come right back home, we might spend three or four days ‌around Earth, we might go to the Moon – that’s where we want to go,” he said. “But it ⁠isa test mission, and ‌we’re ready for every scenario.”

Wiseman previously spent 165 days aboard the International Space Station during a 2014 mission launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. A former US Navy test pilot, he later led NASA’s astronaut office before being selected to command Artemis II.

Glover, meanwhile, logged 168 days in space starting in 2020 as pilot of NASA’s Crew-1 mission, the first operational ISS flight using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. Before joining NASA, he flew more than 40 aircraft during a US Navy career that included combat deployments and test-pilot assignments.

Koch set a record in 2019 for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days aboard the ISS. Trained as an electrical engineer and physicist, she had earlier worked as a NASA engineer and also supported extended research expeditions in Antarctica.

For Col Hansen, Artemis II will be his first mission to space. Selected as a Canadian astronaut in 2009, his seat underscores a long-standing US-Canadian partnership in human spaceflight, including Canada’s role in robotics used onboard the ISS.

NASA has outlined additional Artemis missions in the years ahead as it targets a sustained human presence on the Moon and prepares for future crewed voyages to Mars.