After evaluating more than 8,000 applications, NASA will debut its 2025 class of astronaut candidates on Monday, September 22. The selected candidates will undergo nearly two years of training before they graduate as flight-eligible astronauts for agency missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and ultimately, Mars.
NASA is also preparing for the upcoming Artemis II mission, slated for no later than April 2026. The test flight, a launch of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft, will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on an approximately 10-day mission around the Moon.
Artemis II will help confirm the systems and hardware needed for human deep space exploration. This mission is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign and is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send American astronauts to Mars.
Image: NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Artemis II pilot; Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander; CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Artemis II mission specialist; and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, suit up and walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 11.
Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
