What to know
Jeremy Hansen will become the first Canadian to travel to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis II mission launching in April.
The nearly 10-day mission will test the Orion spacecraft, flying more than one million kilometres before returning to Earth.
Hansen, a CSA astronaut and Royal Canadian Air Force colonel, was selected for the historic mission in 2023 after decades of aviation and space training.
Buckle up, Canada, we’re about to head to the moon! The first-ever Canadian astronaut is preparing to fly to the moon this spring.
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen and three American astronauts will travel to the moon in April, in NASA’s first manned lunar mission in over 50 years.
The Artemis II mission will be the first crewed flight in a multi-mission effort to build “durable lunar presence” and open the path to explore Mars. Its objective is to test all Orion spacecraft systems and make sure everything is ready for future missions.
Astronauts will launch from Florida by April and will be testing all life-support tools, navigation, and other systems throughout the nearly 10-day trip. The spacecraft will reach beyond the far side of the moon for over one million kilometres, completing a lunar flyby, before landing off the coast of San Diego.
NASA last sent astronauts to the moon in 1972 as part of its Apollo 17 mission. At the time, the objective was to study a pre-selected area of the moon, sample materials and surface features, and conduct surface and in-flight experiments.
The last Artemis I mission took place in 2022, and aimed to first test the Orion spacecraft without a crew, which was considered a success by the agency.
Unlike the last Apollo mission, astronauts will not be stepping on the moon surface as part of Artemis II, with the aircraft only orbiting the moon instead.
WHO IS JEREMY HANSEN?
Colonel Hansen was born in 1976 in London, ON, but was raised on a farm near Ailsa Craig, ON before moving to Ingersoll, ON for high school, according to his NASA profile.
His journey with aviation began when he was only 12 years old and joined the 614 Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron in London.
At only 23, he graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, ON with a bachelor’s degree in honours space science. Years later, he also completed a CF-18 Fighter Pilot Training at the 410 Tactical Fighter Operational Training Squadron.
In 2009, Hansen was selected by the CSA through its Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign, from which he graduated in 2011, and took the role of capcom (which is the link between astronauts in the International Space Station and Mission Control on Earth).
In 2017, he became the first Canadian to ever lead a NASA astronaut class, training junior astronauts from the U.S. and Canada.
Now, the astronaut is about to be representing Canada on the moon for the first-time ever, a mission that was assigned to him in 2023.