Jeremy Hansen has waited his entire adult life for this. On Monday, the Canadian Space Agency astronaut and former CF-18 fighter pilot is scheduled to launch aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission — the first crewed flight around the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. He won’t just be a passenger. Hansen will become the first non-American to fly on a lunar mission, a distinction that carries enormous symbolic weight for Canada and for the broader future of international space exploration.
The mission, set to lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, will send a crew of four on an approximately 10-day trip around the Moon and back. No landing. Not this time. But the flight will test every critical system — life support, navigation, communications, the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield during a blistering reentry — that must work flawlessly before NASA attempts to put boots on the lunar surface with Artemis III. As Digital Trends reported, the significance of this particular mission extends well beyond engineering validation. It is a statement about who gets to go to the Moon in the 21st century.
Hansen, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, was selected as a Canadian Space Agency astronaut in 2009. He has never flown to space. Sixteen years of training, simulations, public outreach, and waiting — and his first mission will be one of the most consequential spaceflights in a generation. That’s an almost absurd level of patience, even by astronaut standards.
“This is something I’ve been working toward for a very long time,” Hansen has said in pre-launch interviews. His crewmates are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot), and Christina Koch (mission specialist). Glover will become the first Black astronaut to fly beyond low Earth orbit. Koch will be the first woman on a lunar trajectory. Every seat on this spacecraft carries a first.
Canada’s place on the crew isn’t charity. It’s payment. The Canadian Space Agency committed to building Canadarm3, a next-generation robotic arm for NASA’s Lunar Gateway — the planned space station that will orbit the Moon and serve as a staging point for surface missions. In exchange, Canada secured a seat on Artemis II and at least one future lunar surface mission for a Canadian astronaut. The deal, struck during the Trump administration’s first term and continued under Biden, represents one of the more consequential pieces of space diplomacy in recent memory. According to Digital Trends, Hansen’s selection was a direct result of Canada’s contributions to the Artemis program and its long history of robotic arm technology dating back to the Space Shuttle era.
For Hansen personally, the road to this moment has been anything but straightforward. Born in London, Ontario, he studied space science at the Royal Military College of Canada before becoming a fighter pilot. He flew CF-18 Hornets, served as a combat-ready pilot, and later became a top graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Test pilot credentials have long been the golden ticket into astronaut corps worldwide, and Hansen’s résumé checked every box. Yet after his selection in 2009, he watched as colleagues received International Space Station assignments while he continued training on the ground.
That changed in April 2023, when NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Canadian Space Agency officials announced the Artemis II crew at an event in Houston. Hansen’s name was on the list. The moment was electric — particularly in Canada, where space exploration enjoys broad public support but where citizens had grown accustomed to seeing their astronauts play supporting roles on ISS missions rather than headline-grabbing deep space flights.
The technical profile of Artemis II is worth understanding in detail. The crew will launch aboard the Orion spacecraft, which sits atop the SLS Block 1 rocket — the most powerful launch vehicle NASA has ever built. After reaching orbit, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage will fire to send Orion on a trans-lunar injection trajectory. The spacecraft will fly past the Moon, loop behind it, and use the Moon’s gravity to sling back toward Earth. Total distance: roughly 1.3 million miles. The crew will venture approximately 6,400 miles beyond the far side of the Moon — farther from Earth than any human has ever traveled, surpassing the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
There is no lunar lander on this mission. Artemis II is a shakedown cruise for the spacecraft and its crew, analogous to Apollo 8’s role in the original lunar program. That 1968 mission proved the command module could handle the trip before Apollo 11 attempted the landing seven months later. NASA is following a similar incremental approach, though the timeline between Artemis II and a landing attempt remains fluid. Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts near the Moon’s south pole using SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System, is currently targeting no earlier than 2027.
The Orion spacecraft itself has flown once before, on the uncrewed Artemis I mission in late 2022. That 25-day flight tested the vehicle’s systems and, critically, its heat shield. And this is where things get complicated. Post-flight analysis of the Artemis I heat shield revealed unexpected charring patterns — material loss that didn’t match pre-flight models. NASA spent months investigating the anomaly before concluding that the issue, while requiring design adjustments, did not pose a safety risk to a crewed mission. Engineers modified reentry procedures to reduce thermal stress on the shield. Hansen and his crewmates have expressed confidence in the solution, though the heat shield will undoubtedly be the most closely watched piece of hardware during Artemis II’s return to Earth.
Reentry speed will be approximately 25,000 miles per hour. At that velocity, the plasma envelope surrounding the spacecraft will reach temperatures around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat shield must absorb and dissipate that energy while protecting the crew cabin. It’s the single most dangerous phase of the mission.
Hansen’s role aboard the spacecraft goes beyond his title as mission specialist. According to Digital Trends, he has been deeply involved in testing Orion’s systems during years of pre-flight preparation, including extensive work in simulators replicating emergency scenarios. His fighter pilot and test pilot background gives him particular expertise in evaluating vehicle performance under stress — exactly the kind of skill set needed on a mission whose primary purpose is to wring out a new spacecraft.
The geopolitical context of this launch cannot be ignored. China’s space program has been accelerating its own lunar ambitions, with plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030. The China National Space Administration successfully returned samples from the Moon’s far side in 2024 with its Chang’e 6 mission, a technical achievement that underscored Beijing’s growing capabilities. Russia, despite its partnership with China on the planned International Lunar Research Station, has struggled with its own program — the Luna 25 lander crashed into the Moon in August 2023. Against this backdrop, Artemis II serves as a highly visible demonstration that the U.S.-led coalition of space agencies remains the front-runner in the race to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon.
Canada’s involvement extends the mission’s diplomatic significance to the broader Artemis Accords, a set of principles governing lunar exploration that has been signed by more than 40 nations. The accords, which emphasize transparency, interoperability, and peaceful use of space resources, serve as a counterweight to the separate framework being developed by China and Russia. Having a Canadian on the first crewed Artemis flight reinforces the multinational character of the program and gives Ottawa a tangible return on its investment in Canadarm3 and other contributions.
Back on the ground, the mission has generated a level of public interest in Canada not seen since Chris Hadfield’s celebrated ISS command in 2013. Hansen has been doing extensive media appearances, school visits, and public events in the lead-up to launch. He’s become a national figure — not quite at Hadfield’s level of celebrity, but getting there. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has devoted significant airtime to the mission, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has publicly praised Hansen and the CSA’s role in Artemis.
So what happens after Artemis II? Assuming the mission succeeds, NASA will move toward Artemis III — the landing. That mission will use a modified version of SpaceX’s Starship as the lunar lander, a vehicle that is still undergoing suborbital and orbital testing. SpaceX has made rapid progress with Starship test flights from its Boca Chica, Texas facility, but significant milestones remain, including demonstrating orbital refueling and the lander variant’s ability to touch down precisely on the lunar surface. The timeline is ambitious, and further delays are possible. But Artemis II’s success would remove one of the biggest question marks: whether Orion and SLS can safely carry humans to the Moon and bring them home.
For Hansen, the mission represents something more personal than national pride or engineering milestones. He’s spoken in interviews about the perspective shift that astronauts experience when they see Earth from deep space — what’s often called the overview effect. He’ll be one of fewer than 30 humans in history to see the whole Earth as a small sphere against the blackness of space. Every Apollo astronaut who made that trip described it as transformative. Hansen will soon find out for himself.
The launch window opens Monday. Four astronauts. One spacecraft. A quarter-million miles of emptiness between here and the Moon. And a Canadian fighter pilot who waited 16 years for the ride of his life.
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