Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and his NASA crewmates are set to take part in a news conference on Thursday after the historic Artemis II lunar mission.
The four-person crew — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Hansen — splashed down in the Pacific Ocean last Friday.
The 10-day flight saw astronauts travel to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, setting a record for the greatest distance travelled by humans away from Earth.
The astronauts underwent initial medical checks aboard the ship that recovered them off the San Diego coast before they were flown to Houston, where they were greeted with a jubilant homecoming at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Mission Control.
NASA said the crew has since been undergoing standard postflight reconditioning, evaluations and lunar science debriefings.
Thursday’s news conference — the first since their return to Earth — is scheduled to take place at 2:30 p.m. Eastern at the Houston space centre.
Hansen, a 50-year-old from London, Ont., also made history during the mission as the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit. He was also the first person to speak French while en route to the moon.
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In a message broadcast just before liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, Hansen said, “We are going for all humanity.”
Hansen and his crewmates spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney while in space. Carney called the mission “hugely inspiring” and said Canadians couldn’t be more proud of Hansen and the collaboration with the United States.
The four astronauts were watched around the world and praised for the friendship and love for each other they displayed during the mission. In an emotional moment, the crew asked that a lunar crater be named after Wiseman’s late wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.
Unlike the Apollo program, which sent men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, the Artemis program is setting the stage for a more permanent human lunar presence and is laying the groundwork to send astronauts to Mars.
NASA said in a news release the Artemis II crew achieved the mission’s primary objectives: testing its life support systems; manually piloting the Orion spacecraft; performing manoeuvres to propel Orion to the Moon and adjust its course; conducting a lunar flyby with unprecedented views of the Moon’s far side; and completing a safe re-entry and recovery.
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