NASA includes a woman and an African American for the return to the Moon

   MADRID, 3 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

NASA presented the first 4 astronauts, including a woman and an African American, who will crew Artemis missions, with which the agency plans to return to the Moon, 50 years after the Apollo missions.

In a massive act held at the Johnson Center of the space agency in Houston, led by the chief of astronauts Joe Acaba, the chosen ones who will venture to the surroundings of the Moon on the Artemis II mission were announced. Its launch is scheduled for 2024, as confirmed in the act by NASA administrator Bill Nelson.

These are the Americans Gregory Reid Wiseman, as commander, the African-American Víctor J. Glover as pilot, and the mission specialists Christina Koch, also from NASA, and Jeremy Hansen, the latter an astronaut from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Canada is a leading partner of NASA in the development of the Artemis program.

Reid Wiseman lived and worked aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer in 2014. He also commanded the NEEMO21 underwater research mission and most recently served as NASA's Chief of Astronauts.

Victor Glover is part of the 2013 NASA Astronaut Class and was a pilot for the Crew 1 mission contracted to Space X to fly to the International Space Station. He has logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft and will be the first pilot of an Orion, in this case flying around the Moon.

Canadian Jeremy Hansen was a fighter pilot before joining the CSA and currently works with NASA on astronaut training and mission operations. This will be Hansen's first mission in space.

Christina Koch visited the Space Station in 2019, where she participated in the first all-female spacewalk. She began her career as an electrical engineer at the Goddard Center.

The mission, which will last approximately 10 days, will test the life support systems of the Orion spacecraft, attached to the ESA service module, to demonstrate the capabilities and techniques necessary to live and work in deep space in a suitable for humans, reports NASA.

Artemis II builds on the successful Artemis I flight test, which launched an uncrewed Orion spacecraft, mounted on the SLS rocket, on a journey of some 2.25 million kilometers beyond the Moon to test the systems before they were released. astronauts fly aboard systems on a mission to the surface of the Moon.