Virtually 30 years after he graduated from Ontario Excessive College in Southern California, Victor Glover will develop into one in all solely a choose few astronauts — and the primary individual of shade — to embark on a NASA mission to the moon.
Glover was chosen to pilot NASA’s history-making Artemis II mission, anticipated to take off subsequent yr to circle the moon earlier than returning to Earth in 10 days, in line with a information launch from NASA.
The crew can have three different astronauts, together with the primary lady and the primary Canadian to go on a lunar mission — Christina Hammock Koch and Jeremy Hansen, who will function mission specialists — and Reid Wiseman, who will command the mission. Hansen is with the Canadian Area Company, which has partnered with NASA on the mission.
“We’ve rather a lot to have a good time, and it’s a lot greater than the 4 names which have been introduced; we have to have a good time this second in human historical past,” Glover stated Monday at a livestreamed NASA occasion saying the crew for the mission. “It’s the subsequent step on the journey that will get humanity to Mars.”
The Artemis II mission builds off the success of Artemis I, which was an unmanned deep house rocket and spacecraft. The 4 astronauts will circle the moon, touring 600,000 miles round-trip at 30 occasions the pace of sound, in line with NASA.
“4 names, 4 explorers … answering the decision to as soon as extra rocket away from Earth and chart a course across the moon,” stated Joe Acaba, chief astronaut at NASA.
The mission just isn’t alleged to land on the moon, however it will be the closest that people have gotten to the lunar panorama in additional than 50 years. It’s a part of NASA’s mission to determine a “long-term presence on the moon” in addition to a pathway to Mars.
“The most important, strongest rocket on the planet goes to propel them onward and upward,” Invoice Nelson, NASA administrator, stated on the occasion Monday. “Artemis II will carry the hopes of tens of millions of individuals world wide. … We are going to present what is feasible once we dare to succeed in distant cosmic shores.”
Glover was born in Pomona and graduated from Ontario Excessive in 1994. He earned his bachelor’s diploma in 1999 from California Polytechnic State College, in line with his biography. He has lived round the nation and the world as a naval aviator, and he turned a skilled astronaut in 2015.
Artemis II shall be Glover’s second spaceflight. He beforehand served because the pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1, which landed in Could 2021 after 168 days in house.
Glover is married with 4 kids.
“This mission paves the way in which for the growth of human deep house exploration and presents new alternatives for scientific discoveries, industrial, business and educational partnerships and the Artemis Technology,” stated Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Mission Management Middle in Houston.
Artemis II is anticipated to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida earlier than splashing down within the Pacific Ocean off San Diego 10 days later.
The lunar exploration program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister, hopes to land people on the moon as early as 2025.
