NASA names first woman to make 2024 flight around Moon : The American space agency, NASA and the “Canadian Space Agency” (CSA) has recently announced the 4 astronauts for the 10-day long Artemis-II Mission set to launch in 2024 for science and exploration around the Moon. Among the four is astronaut Christina Koch, who will be the first woman to go to the lunar orbit. She also holds record for longest single spaceflight by a woman. She will be joined by the NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen from CSA on the 10-day-long mission.
The aim of the preparation for the 10-day-long Artemis-II mission is to bring humanity one step closer to landing on the lunar surface once again since the Apollo missions.
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NASA names first woman to make 2024 flight around Moon: About Christina Koch
- Astronaut Christina Hammock Koch joined Nasa in the year 2013 as a flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) for Expeditions 59, 60 and 61
- She attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.
- She was first launched into space in 2019 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft.
- Koch conducted six spacewalks, including the first three all women spacewalks, totaling 42 hours and 15 minutes. She has spent a total of 328 days in space.
- Koch and her crewmates contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, Earth science, human research, physical science and technology development.
- NASA names first woman to make 2024 flight around Moon
Important Points about the Artemis mission
- The Artemis program is a robotic mission program for the exploration of the lunar surface led by the US Space Agency, NASA along with three partner agencies—the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
- Artemis-1 or formally Exploration Mission-1 was an uncrewed Moon orbiting mission launched on Nov. 16 2022.
- The Artemis-II is the first crewed mission around the lunar orbit in more than 50 years. The previous human flight to lunar surface was the Apollo mission in 1972.
- The Artemis-II crew members consists of 3 astronauts from NASA and one from Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
- Out of these four, Christian Hammock Koch is the first ever female, Victor Glover is the first African-American and Jeremy Hansen is the first ever Canadian to be sent on a lunar mission. NASA names first woman to make 2024 flight around Moon