Jeremy Hansen of Canada, the colleagues of Artemis II planned to hold a press conference – National
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and his NASA colleagues will participate in a press conference on Thursday after the Artemis II lunar mission.
The four-person crew – commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and technicians Christina Koch and Hansen – crashed in the Pacific Ocean last Friday.
The 10-day flight saw astronauts go to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, setting a record for the longest distance traveled by humans from Earth.
The astronauts underwent an initial medical check-up aboard the ship that landed them off the coast of San Diego before being flown to Houston, where they were welcomed home at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Mission Control.
NASA said the crew has since been undergoing post-flight review, testing and lunar science discussions.
Thursday’s news conference – the first since they returned to Earth – is scheduled for 2:30 pm Eastern at the Houston space center.
Hansen, a 50-year-old from London, Ont., also made history during the mission as the first non-American to walk beyond Earth orbit. He was also the first person to speak French on the way to the moon.
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In a message broadcast shortly before liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, Hansen said, “We are fighting for all of humanity.”
Hansen and his crew spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney while in space. Carney called the mission “very encouraging” and said Canadians couldn’t be more proud of Hansen and working with the United States.
The four astronauts were watched around the world and praised for the friendship and love between them they showed during the mission. In a touching moment, the team asked that the lunar crater be named after Wiseman’s late wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.
Unlike the Apollo program, which sent humans to the moon from 1968 to 1972, the Artemis program sets the stage for a permanent human presence on the moon and lays the groundwork for sending astronauts to Mars.
NASA said in a news release that the Artemis II crew achieved the mission’s primary objectives: testing its life support systems; manually pilot the Orion spacecraft; strategizing to move Orion to the Moon and correct its course; conducting a lunar probe with unprecedented views of the far side of the Moon; and completing a safe re-entry and recovery.
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