Going the farthest: Meet the four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II moon mission

Clockwise from top left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Josh Valcarcel / NASA Space Going the farthest Four astronauts are blazing NASA's trail back to the moon. Their mission, scheduled to launch on Wednesday, could take them farther from Earth than any human has gone before. Listen to this article with a free account 00:00 00:00 Share Add NBC News to Google March 31, 2026, 9:35 AM EDT By Denise Chow , Jay Blackman and Al Roker In just two days, four astronauts could launch toward the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The crew, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are set to fly on NASA’s Artemis II mission , a 10-day journey that will take them swinging around the moon. Their path through space could send the group farther from Earth than any human has ever ventured, surpassing the Apollo 13 distance record of 248,655 miles set in 1970. Though the astronauts will not land on the moon’s surface, the flight is meant to kick-start a new era of lunar exploration, paving the way for a targeted moon landing in two years. The Artemis II mission will mark the first time that NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule carry human passengers. If that’s cause for any trepidation, the astronauts haven’t let it show. “The four of us, we are ready to go. The team is ready to go. The vehicle is ready to go,” Wiseman said Sunday in a media briefing from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Following some starts and stops over the last few months — NASA had to forego launch opportunities in February and March to make last-minute repairs to the rocket — Wiseman and the rest of the crew entered quarantine in Houston on March 18, a standard preflight procedure to ensure the astronauts remain healthy before their mission. They arrived in Florida on Friday. Wiseman will command the Artemis II mission, with Glover servi...