Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen stands in front of a display as he participates in an interview at the opening of Earth in Focus: Insights from Space, a new exhibition at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. Hansen, a colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, has been selected to become the first Canadian to venture into deep space.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

By The Canadian Press

TO THE MOON AND BACK

NASA, CSA name Jeremy Hansen to be first Canadian to encircle the moon

Apr 3, 2023 | 9:41 AM

Jeremy Hansen, a colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, has been selected to become the first Canadian to venture into deep space.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency made the long-awaited announcement today, introducing the four astronauts who will steer the next stage of an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon.

The other three astronauts on the Artemis II mission are all American: Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover and G. Reid Wiseman.

Scheduled to blast off as early as November 2024, Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to the moon since the final Apollo mission took flight in 1972.

The four astronauts will orbit Earth once before sling-shotting into deep space for a figure-8 manoeuvre around the dark side of the moon, making Canada and the U.S. the only two countries to ever venture that far.

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The plan is to put a man and woman on the moon in 2025 in service of the ultimate goal: eventually dispatching astronauts to Mars.