By AFP | 2026-03-31

The four astronauts selected for the Artemis II moon mission -- set to launch as soon as April 1 -- will be the first to travel there in more than five decades, and are set to become the new faces of American space exploration.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch will make the voyage with their Canadian Space Agency colleague Jeremy Hansen.

Baltimore native Wiseman, 50, is the mission's commander. He joined NASA in 2009, following a 27-year career in the US Navy.

"I never thought I'd be an astronaut," he said on a NASA podcast. "I mean, come on, it's like an unobtainable dream."

In 2014, Wiseman traveled to space for a 165-day mission aboard the International Space Station, and later served as NASA's chief of the astronaut office.

After losing his wife to cancer in 2020, he raised his two daughters -- now teenagers -- on his own. In January, he said he aimed for transparency in explaining to them the inherent risks of his career and his coming journey.

Glover, a 49-year-old Navy veteran, will serve as pilot of the Orion spacecraft.

A native of California, the father of four daughters was working as a legislative advisor in the US Senate when NASA selected him in 2013.

He has recounted youthful dreaming of becoming a police officer like his father.

But watching a Space Shuttle launch on his family's television set changed his perspective: "I thought, 'I really want to drive one of those.'"

"And yes, I said drive, because I didn't know any pilots or engineers."

'Do what scares you'

Koch, 47, was chosen by NASA in 2013. An engineer by training, she is a seasoned explorer who has worked in extreme environments including Antarctica.

She long dreamed of becoming an astronaut, she has said, noting the poster of the iconic "Earthrise" image plastered to the wall of her childhood bedroom.

That photograph was taken during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

"I always say to people, do what scares you," she says of her personal motto. "And that means I have to follow my own advice."

Hansen, 50, will be the first non-US citizen to fly around the moon.

Following his career as a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian Space Agency brought him into its ranks in 2009.

Post-training he served for several years as a liaison between Earth and the ISS, after which he was entrusted with training a new class of astronauts.

He has said that as a child he found a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the moon, a moment that sparked his passion for space exploration.

The Artemis II mission will be his first journey away from Earth.