History will be made when the first woman and person of color voyage to the moon. Mekahlo Medina reports for the NBC4 News on April 3, 2023.
Southern California astronaut Victor Glover was selected Monday to take the next giant leap in space travel.
Glover, a 1994 graduate of Ontario High School, will be part of the four-member crew for the Artemis 2 mission around the Moon, NASA announced Monday. Glover will pilot NASA's Orion spacecraft around the moon after a journey from Cape Canaveral on the Florida coast.
The mission is scheduled for launch no earlier than November 2024.
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During Monday's announcement, Glover thanked family members for their support.
"This is a big day," Glover said. "We have a lot to celebrate, and it's so much more than the four names that have been announced. We need to celebrate this moment in human history.
"It is the next step that gets humanity on the journey to Mars."
Born in Pomona, Glover is a Naval Aviator who graduated from California Polytechnic State University who was selected in 2013 as one of eight members of the 21st NASA astronaut class. Glover was part of SpaceX Crew-1 and Expedition 64, the first post-certification mission of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and its second crewed flight in a mission aboard the International Space Station. He was a flight engineer on the Space Station, completing 168 days in orbit and four spacewalks.
The Artemis 2 mission will send Orion and a crew farther than people have ever traveled from Earth. It is a precursor to Artemis 3, which is targeting the first crewed moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The first un-crewed test flight was last year.
The missions, named after the goddess of the moon and twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, are considered stepping stones to an eventual crewed mission to Mars.
The three Americans and one Canadian will be the first to fly NASA's Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.
The mission's commander, Reid Wiseman, will be joined by Glover; Christina Koch, who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a woman; and Canada's Jeremy Hansen. All are space veterans expect Hansen.
This is the first moon crew to include a woman and someone not from the U.S. — and the first crew in NASA's new moon program named Artemis. Late last year, an Orion capsule with only a 'Moonikin' aboard flew to the moon and back in a long-awaited dress rehearsal.
During Apollo, NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon from 1968 through 1972. Twelve of them landed. All were military-trained test pilots except for Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who closed out that moonlanding era alongside the late Gene Cernan.
Provided this next 10-day moonshot goes well, NASA aims to land two astronauts on the moon by 2025 or so.
NASA picked from 41 active astronauts for its first Artemis crew. Canada had four candidates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
