PanamaTimes

Thursday, Jul 10, 2025

NASA Names First Woman, First Black Astronauts For Artemis II Moon Mission

NASA Names First Woman, First Black Astronauts For Artemis II Moon Mission

NASA on Monday named the first woman and the first African American ever assigned as astronauts to a lunar mission, introducing them as part of the four-member team chosen to fly on what would be the first crewed voyage around the moon in more than 50 years.
Christina Koch, an engineer who already holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman and was part of NASA's first three all-female spacewalks, was named as a mission specialist for the Artemis II lunar flyby expected as early as next year.

She will be joined by Victor Glover, a U.S. Navy aviator and veteran of four spacewalks who NASA has designated as pilot of Artemis II. He will be the first Black astronaut ever to be sent on a lunar mission.

Rounding out the four-member crew are Jeremy Hansen, a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel and first Canadian ever chosen for a flight to the moon, as a mission specialist, and Reid Wiseman, another former U.S. Navy fighter pilot, named as Artemis II mission commander.

All three NASA astronauts chosen for the Artemis II mission are veterans of previous expeditions aboard the International Space Station. Hansen is a spaceflight rookie.

The Artemis II quartet were introduced at a pep rally-like event attended by journalists, local elementary school students and space industry leaders, televised from Houston at the Johnson Space Center, NASA's mission control base.

"The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on stage. "This is humanity's crew."

Artemis II will mark the debut crewed flight - but not the first lunar landing - of an Apollo successor program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon's surface later this decade and ultimately establishing a sustainable outpost there as a stepping stone to future human exploration of Mars.

The kickoff Artemis I mission was successfully completed in December 2022, capping the inaugural launch of NASA's powerful next-generation mega-rocket and its newly built Orion spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight that lasted 25 days.

The objective of the 10-day, 1.4-million-mile (2.3-million-km) Artemis II journey around the moon and back, is to demonstrate that all of Orion's life-support apparatus and other systems will operate as designed with astronauts aboard in deep space.

Artemis II will venture some 6,400 miles (10,300 km) beyond the far side of the moon before returning, marking the closest pass humans have made to Earth's natural satellite since Apollo 17, which carried Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt to the lunar surface in December 1972.

They were the last of 12 NASA astronauts - all of them white men - who walked on the moon during six Apollo missions starting in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

LUNAR LANDING PLAN

At its farthest distance from Earth, Artemis II is expected to reach a point more than 230,000 miles (370,000 km) away. The typical low-Earth orbit altitude of the International Space Station is about 250 miles (420 km) above the planet.

Carried to Earth orbit atop NASA's two-stage Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Artemis II crew will practice manual maneuvers with the Orion spacecraft before handing back to ground control for further tests and the lunar flyby portion of the mission.

The outbound journey would culminate with Orion looping around the moon, then using both the Earth's and the moon's gravity to send the spacecraft on a propulsion-free return flight lasting about four more days, ending in a splashdown at sea.

If Artemis II is a success, NASA plans to follow a few years later with the programs' first lunar landing of astronauts, one of them a woman, on Artemis III, then continue with additional crewed missions about once a year.

Compared with the Apollo program, born of the Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet space race, Artemis is broader based, enlisting commercial partners such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and the government space agencies of Canada, Europe and Japan.

It also marks a major redirection of NASA's human spaceflight ambitions beyond low-Earth orbit after decades focused on Space Shuttles and the International Space Station.
Comments

Oh ya 2 year ago
Well i guess they are trying to cover all the bases black, women, gay? well they might have that covered also. Who is going to film this movie lie? With Stanley Kubrick dead I hope they can find as good a film makers as he was. The last moon landing was done when the USA needed a feel good boost because they just had their asses beat in Vietnam and now is the same with the world rejecting the USD, banks collapsing, operation Sandman coming, the end of empire

Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
U.S. Enacts Sweeping Tax and Spending Legislation Amid Trade Policy Shifts
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
OpenAI Secures Multimillion-Dollar AI Contracts with Pentagon, India, and Grab
Brazilian Congress Rejects Lula's Proposed Tax Increase on Financial Transactions
Landslide in Bello, Colombia, Results in Multiple Casualties
Papa Johns pizza surge near the Pentagon tipped off social media before Trump's decisive Iran strike
Juncker Criticizes EU Inaction on Trump Tariffs
Minnesota Lawmaker Melissa Hortman and Husband Killed in Targeted Attack; Senator John Hoffman and Wife Injured
Wreck of $17 Billion San José Galleon Identified Off Colombia After 300 Years
Sole Survivor of Air India Crash Recounts Escape
Coinbase CEO Warns Bitcoin Could Supplant US Dollar Amid Mounting National Debt
UK and EU Reach Agreement on Gibraltar's Schengen Integration
Israeli Finance Minister Imposes Banking Penalties on Palestinians
U.S. Inflation Rises to 2.4% in May Amid Trade Tensions
Trump's Policies Prompt Decline in Chinese Student Enrollment in U.S.
Global Oceans Near Record Temperatures as CO₂ Levels Climb
Trump Announces U.S.-China Trade Deal Covering Rare Earths
Smuggled U.S. Fuel Funds Mexican Cartels Amid Crackdown
Protests Erupt in Los Angeles with Symbolic Flag Burning
Trump Administration Issues New Travel Ban Targeting 12 Countries
Man Group Mandates Full-Time Office Return for Quantitative Analysts
JPMorgan Warns Analysts Against Accepting Future-Dated Job Offers
Builder.ai Faces Legal Scrutiny Amid Financial Misreporting Allegations
Japan Grapples with Rice Shortage Amid Soaring Prices
Goldman Sachs Reduces Risk Exposure Amid Market Volatility
HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker to Return to AIA as Non-Executive Chair
Israel Confirms Arming Gaza Clan to Counter Hamas Influence
Judge Blocks Trump's Ban on International Students at Harvard
Trump Proposes Travel Ban on 'Uncontrolled' Countries
Panama Port Owner Balances US-China Pressures
Trump Administration Accused of Obstructing Deportation Cases
Trump’s China Strategy Remains a Geopolitical Puzzle
Eurozone Inflation Falls Below ECB Target to 1.9%
Call for a New Chapter in Globalisation Emerges
Blackstone and Rivals Diverge on Private Equity Strategy
Mayor’s Security Officer Implicated | Shocking New Details Emerge in NYC Kidnapping Case
Bangkok Ranked World's Top City for Remote Work in 2025
Denmark Increases Retirement Age to 70, Setting a European Precedent
Netanyahu Accuses Western Leaders of 'Emboldening Hamas'
Escalating Trade Tensions and Market Reactions
OnlyFans Reportedly in Talks for $8 Billion Sale
JBS Gains Shareholder Approval for U.S. Stock Listing
Booz Allen Hamilton to Cut 2,500 Jobs Amid Federal Spending Reductions
Trump Signs Executive Orders to Accelerate Nuclear Energy Development
Harvard Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration's International Student Ban
Nippon Steel Forms Partnership with U.S. Steel, Headquarters to Remain in Pittsburgh
Trump Expands Tariff Threats to Apple and Samsung Devices
Oracle and OpenAI Plan $40 Billion Nvidia Chip Purchase for AI Data Center
×