The first non-American to achieve the moon is prepared for a brand new mission.
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, finest identified for his flight across the moon in April on NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, will step again from lively astronaut obligation in September.
Hansen, who’s additionally a colonel within the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), will subsequent function a reservist to “enable the vital work happening in Canada with respect to space,” the astronaut wrote Monday (July 6) in a press release on X.
“Our future depends on a fierce continuation of Canadian innovation and exploration in space,” Hansen added. “The technological breakthroughs and economic benefits born from this sector are vital for our country and the world, and I am as determined as ever to push that work forward.”
Space sovereignty has come underneath renewed focus in current months in Canada. Long-standing efforts at a homegrown launch functionality, for instance, obtained a wave of Canadian protection funding in March, with $200 million CDN ($140 million) provided to an in-development spaceport in Nova Scotia over 10 years, plus additional money to ultimately get Canadian-made rockets into orbit. Hansen, an astronaut for 17 years, went to the Maritime Launch Services spaceport to attend a suborbital launch final month.
But Hansen’s position lately additionally consists of vital strides in area diplomacy: In 2026 alone, he and his three Artemis 2 crewmates have been seen on the White House, with congressional committee representatives and on the president’s State of the Union tackle, additionally making similar-tier stops in Canadian politics. Just final week, he attended each Independence Day and Canada Day nationwide celebrations.
Part of Hansen’s messaging at these occasions is obvious in this June 11 X post: “Canada and the United States have been close collaborators in space exploration for over six decades,” he said.
An extended street to area
Hansen, 50, has been flying for the reason that age of 12, first with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, in keeping with his official CSA biography. He graduated rapidly to gliding and personal piloting earlier than serving as a fighter pilot for the RCAF. After rising up within the London, Ontario space considerably close to Toronto, Hansen served in a number of areas throughout Canada, most prominently as a CF-18 fighter pilot with the 441 Tactical Fighter Squadron and 409 Tactical Fighter Squadron. Hansen additionally labored on NORAD (North American Air Defense) tasks as fight operations officer at 4 Wing Operations.
In May 2009, at age 33, Hansen was one among two recruits for the Canadian astronaut corps chosen that yr, and he grew to become absolutely certified as an astronaut in 2011. To the shock of many, he didn’t obtain his first flight task for an unbelievable 14 years after preliminary choice, when the Artemis 2 crew was introduced on April 3, 2023.
The wait was partly as a result of Canada’s roughly 2% contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), by means of robotics packages like Canadarm2, means a CSA astronaut will get to fly a long-duration mission there simply each 5 or 6 years at present flight charges. (Some Canadians have additionally reached the station as personal astronauts, or on behalf of NASA.)
For perspective: During Hansen’s tenure, he was not absolutely certified for a CSA mission when Robert Thirsk flew to the ISS in 2009 (earlier than the area shuttle‘s retirement, when long-duration missions had been allotted otherwise), or for a lot of the coaching that Chris Hadfield did forward of his personal 2012-13 mission to the orbiting lab.
David Saint-Jacques, Hansen’s barely older classmate from 2009, flew in 2018-19. The subsequent ISS mission, by CSA astronaut Josh Kutryk this September, may have an extended hole as a result of — in the end, and really merely put — he was switched from a delayed Boeing Starliner mission to SpaceX‘s Crew-13.
But astronauts by no means sit idle. Aside from the standard mission help and background work at NASA, Hansen helped develop the instruments and procedures for a posh spacewalk to restore a an instrument exterior the ISS designed to hunt for elusive darkish matter, which NASA once described as “four years in the making.”
Hansen additionally served as what he referred to as a “den mother” for NASA’s 2017 astronaut class, an roughly two-year posting to be the first-ever Canadian supervisor of their coaching schedules.
“The buck stops with me,” he advised Space.com again then. “If we get to the end and they don’t have the training they need, I’ll be the one answering the questions about why was that not completed.”
Moon work
Then program adjustments intervened. NASA’s human spaceflight plans past the ISS sharpened in 2017 into returning humans to the moon, and luckily for Artemis (as this has not always been the case) the change has stuck through several presidential administration changes.
CSA was an early signatory to the Artemis Accords, with a commitment of hardware as well. (The initial promise was a Canadarm3 robotic arm to operate on a planned moon-orbiting space station called Gateway. However, with NASA recently deciding to build a moon base in Gateway’s stead, what happens next with international partners is under negotiation, although Canadarm3’s CSA contract continues with the company MDA Space.)
CSA’s commitment secured two Canadian astronaut seats aboard Artemis missions, and the consortium decided to award Canada a seat on the very first crewed mission: Artemis 2. Canadian space industry representatives widely expected that would be Hansen’s mission, not only due to his qualifications, but because Canada recruited Kutryk and Jenni Gibbons in 2017, who alongside Saint-Jacques were the only active astronauts at this time. Gibbons would go on to serve as CSA’s backup astronaut for Artemis 2, as well as the CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator) during the mission’s lunar flyby, in which she served as the direct voice link between mission control in Houston and the crew in the Orion spacecraft.
But Hansen, visited by Space.com in Houston on the day he was announced as an Artemis 2 crewmate, expressed modesty. “It really isn’t about me. I feel a great sense of pride for Canada,” he said, adding words he would often repeat in the following few years: “It was so awesome to see NASA, the United States, showcasing Canada as part of this mission. It’s not as a gift, but because we bring real value.”
In between training for the first moon mission in 50 years alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, Hansen’s message through the three years before liftoff was one of international and national collaboration. His mission patch, as the CSA noted in a description, included contributions with “elements of Anishinaabe culture” as well as from Turtle Lodge in Sagkeeng First Nation, where Hansen did a vision quest during his mission training. Numerous Canadians played front-line roles on Artemis 2, including Gibbons serving as capcom during the lunar flyby.
Artemis 2’s 10-day mission included numerous scientific, historic and cultural milestones. The astronauts traveled farther from Earth than any people ever had, for example, and witnessed a unique solar eclipse not long after passing beyond the far side of the moon. They observed flashes of meteors on the lunar surface, took high-definition photos of the regolith, and spoke with politicians, reporters and school children about their experience from space.
Moreover, what we now know as “moon joy” was evident among the four astronauts. As one example, they shared an emotional group hug on camera on April 6, when the world learned a nomination would be put forward to name a lunar crater for Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
At a NASA event shortly after the April 10 mission splashdown, Hansen mentioned staying on the “joy train” as a crew took effort, however he added that what everybody witnessed among the many crew was additionally attainable on Earth. “We are a mirror, reflecting you,” he mentioned.