March 30, 2026 / 9:29 AM EDT / CBS News
The four Artemis II astronauts scheduled to launch on a trip around the moon this week stand out even in a NASA astronaut corps full of high achievers. The crew includes three space station veterans and a Canadian rookie — a commander who is a single parent to two children; an experienced Navy pilot; a veteran spacewalker who will become the first woman to fly to the moon; and the first Canadian to go beyond low-Earth orbit.
“The extraordinary as a human being to go to the far side of the moon and look back and see the Earth from the perspective of the moon,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said. “Whatever that looks like, and whatever that feels like, that is an extraordinary opportunity that I’m very grateful for.”
Said astronaut Christina Koch: “How do we feel as the people that can call the moon (a) destination, not just something we’re looking at? It is our strong hope that this mission is the start of an era where everyone, every person on Earth, can look at the moon and think of it as also a destination.”
Koch, Hansen, pilot Victor Glover and commander Reid Wiseman were selected with fanfare in April 2023. They have spent the past three years training for a relatively short nine-day mission to loop around the moon, a trailblazing flight that sets the stage for planned moon landings in 2028 and the construction of a lunar base near the moon’s south pole.
The crew brings considerable experience to NASA’s most challenging mission in decades — scheduled for liftoff Wednesday evening. Here’s a look at each astronaut.
Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander
Mission commander Reid Wiseman, 50, was born in Baltimore. He earned a degree in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He became a naval aviator in 1999, completed multiple aircraft carrier deployments, attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and flew F-35 and F-18 jets before another carrier deployment. He was at sea when selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps in 2009.
Wiseman first flew in space in 2014 aboard a Russian Soyuz, logging 165 days on the International Space Station and completing two spacewalks totaling 12 hours, 47 minutes. His wife Carroll, a registered nurse, died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer. He has said raising their daughters as a single dad has been the greatest challenge of his life.
“They would rather I not go,” he said of his children. “They would definitely rather I be a stay-at-home dad and hang out. But they also know that this is a unique opportunity. You know, the parents have to live their dreams just like the kids have to live their dreams.”
U.S. Navy Captain Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot
Born in Pomona, California, Victor Glover, 49, is married and the father of four. He earned an engineering degree from California Polytechnic State University and three master’s degrees in military aviation, systems engineering and management. An F/A-18 pilot, Glover logged a deployment aboard the USS John F. Kennedy, spent a year as a Navy exchange pilot at the Air Force Test Pilot School, and flew with several fighter squadrons before serving as a Legislative Fellow in a U.S. senator’s office. He was selected as an astronaut in 2013.
Glover has more than 3,500 flight hours in over 40 aircraft, more than 400 carrier landings and 24 combat missions. He served as pilot on the first operational SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to the ISS in 2020-21, spending 168 days in orbit and completing four spacewalks.
“I was going through a lot when I got assigned to this mission,” he said. “I had some real challenges going on in my life, and I was trying to do some things professionally as well as personally. And when this assignment came up, it was a tough time to shift gears for me. So I took some time to tell my wife, and then we told the kids when we could all be together. … When I told them, they erupted, let’s go!”
Christina Koch, mission specialist
Christina Koch, 47, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A surfer and rock climber who enjoys backpacking, photography and travel, she holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from North Carolina State University and studied abroad in Ghana. Koch worked as an electrical engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, wintered over at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and worked on science instruments for missions including Juno and spacecraft studying the Van Allen belts. She also did fieldwork in Antarctica, Greenland, Alaska and Samoa before joining NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013.
Koch logged 328 days aboard the ISS in 2019-20, conducting six spacewalks including the first three all-female outings. The Artemis II mission is a logical step for someone who has devoted her life to exploration.
“To me, what it all comes down to is … answering some of the biggest philosophical questions of our time,” she said. “Are we alone? Could there be life out there? We have to know how our solar system formed, how other solar systems around other stars might have formed. And secondly, I think we go to learn about ourselves when we are behind the moon and we’re separated from the rest of humanity.”
Jeremy Hansen, Canadian mission specialist
Born in London, Ontario, Jeremy Hansen, 50, grew up on a farm before finishing high school in Ingersoll, Ontario. A rock climber and mountain biker who enjoys sailing, Hansen is married and the father of three. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron at 12, earned glider wings at 16 and a private pilot’s license at 17. He earned an honors bachelor’s in space science from the Royal Military College and served as a CF-18 fighter pilot and combat operations officer working with NORAD and Arctic operations. The Canadian Space Agency selected him for astronaut training in 2009.
In 2017 Hansen became the first Canadian to lead a NASA astronaut class and was named to Artemis II in 2023. Fifteen Canadians have flown in space, but none beyond low-Earth orbit; Hansen will be the first to travel into deep space and fly around the moon.
“The Artemis II mission will be the first piloted flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and the first flight of an Orion crew capsule with astronauts on board,” Hansen said. “It’s a test flight, and we have to be willing to take that risk. And that’s the one that I talk to my family about. I’m very optimistic. I truly believe the most likely outcome is we’ll all be totally fine when we hit the Pacific Ocean. But I want everyone to understand that you can lose a crew, and if we do that, it shouldn’t shock us. And the most important thing we do next is we stack the next rocket, and let the next four volunteers get on top of it and go.”
He acknowledged asking his family to accept that risk is significant. “My kids are all young adults now, but still a lot to ask of them. But they’re really showing up. They’re really supportive.”
The Artemis II flight is a nine-day lunar flyby designed to test systems and operations with crew aboard, and to pave the way for future Artemis missions that aim to land astronauts on the moon and build sustained presence there.
