NASA’s Artemis 2 to Send First Woman on Lunar Mission as Historic Crew Prepares for Moon Flyby

By Tanveer Ahmed :

NASA is preparing to launch its Artemis 2 mission as early as April 1 from Florida, marking the first crewed journey toward the Moon in more than five decades and the first time a woman will take part in a lunar mission.

The spacecraft is scheduled to lift off at 6:24pm local time from the Kennedy Space Center, which corresponds to 3:24am Pakistan time on Thursday. The mission will carry four astronauts on a roughly 10-day voyage that will loop around the Moon before returning to Earth, although the crew will not attempt a landing.

Among the astronauts is 47-year-old American Christina Koch, who is set to become the first woman to travel on a mission to the Moon. She will join fellow Americans Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The flight will also mark other milestones, including sending the first person of colour and the first non-American on a lunar mission.

Reid Wiseman, 50, will command the mission. A Baltimore native and former US Navy officer, Wiseman joined NASA in 2009 after a 27-year naval career. He previously spent 165 days aboard the International Space Station during a 2014 mission and later served as chief of NASA’s astronaut office. Speaking on a NASA podcast, he recalled that becoming an astronaut once felt like an unreachable ambition. Wiseman, who lost his wife to cancer in 2020, is raising his two teenage daughters and has spoken openly about discussing the risks of spaceflight with them ahead of the mission.

Victor Glover, 49, will pilot the Orion spacecraft. A California native and father of four daughters, Glover was selected by NASA in 2013 while working as a legislative adviser in the US Senate. His interest in space began in childhood after watching a Space Shuttle launch on television. Glover will become the first Black astronaut and the first person of colour to travel to the Moon. In 2020, he also became the first African American to participate in a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station.

Christina Koch, who was also chosen by NASA in 2013, has a background in engineering and exploration in extreme environments, including Antarctica. She already holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days and previously took part in the first all-female spacewalk with fellow astronaut Jessica Meir. Koch has often spoken about being inspired by the famous “Earthrise” photograph from the Apollo 8 mission, which hung on the wall of her childhood bedroom.

Completing the crew is Jeremy Hansen, 50, of Canada, who will become the first non-American astronaut to travel around the Moon. Hansen served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force before joining the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. He later worked as a liaison between mission control and the International Space Station and helped train new astronauts. The father of three has said his passion for space exploration began after seeing a photograph of Neil Armstrong standing on the lunar surface.

Artemis 2 is part of NASA’s broader Artemis programme aimed at returning humans to the Moon and eventually preparing for missions to Mars. The upcoming flight will test the Orion spacecraft and related systems with astronauts on board for the first time since the Apollo era ended in 1972.

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