Christina Koch has been named by NASA as the first woman who will travel around the moon on the next Artemis mission. The joint project between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will see three Americans and one Canadian take flight. The team will be made up of Americans Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Reid Wiseman, along with Canadian Jeremy Hanson.
An announcement was made at a media event at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Ellinton Field in Houston, Texas. People tuned in from around the world to watch the announcement.
The Artemis II mission will be the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence on the moon for science and exploration.
The roles of crew members have also been announced. Reid Wiseman will be commander, Victor Glover as pilot, Christina Hammock Koch as mission specialist one, and Jeremy Hansen as mission specialist two. The flight, expected to last around 10 days, will launch on the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, and also look into the capabilities and techniques necessary for humans to live and work in deep space.
The flight will set the stage for the first woman and first person of colour on the moon through the Artemis program. It’s hoped this expedition will pave the way for future long-term human exploration missions to the moon and eventually Mars.
Director of the Johnson Space Center, Vanessa Wyche, said: “For the first time in more than 50 years, these individuals—the Artemis II crew—will be the first humans to fly to the vicinity of the moon.
“Among the crew are the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first Canadian on a lunar mission, and all four astronauts will represent the best of humanity as they explore for the benefit of all.
This mission paves the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration and presents new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry, and academic partnerships, as well as the Artemis Generation.”
Who is Christina Koch?
Christina Hammock Koch is an American engineer and NASA astronaut from the class of 2013. She received Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and physics and a Master of Science in electrical engineering at North Carolina State University.
Christina Hammock Koch was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013. She served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) for Expeditions 59, 60, and 61. Koch set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks. Koch has been assigned as Mission Specialist I of NASA’s Artemis II mission.
Personal Data
Koch is a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan; she grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and resided in Livingston, Montana, when she was selected to join the Astronaut Corps. Growing up spending summers on her family’s farm in Michigan, she was instilled with a passion for hard work and challenges. Koch enjoys backpacking, rock climbing, paddling, surfing, running, yoga, community service, photography, and travel.
Education
Koch attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. She attended high school at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, North Carolina, and White Oak High School in Jacksonville, North Carolina. She received an honorary PhD from North Carolina State University.
Christina Koch: Experience
Koch’s career before becoming an astronaut spanned both space science instrument development and remote scientific field engineering. Her career began as an electrical engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), where she contributed to scientific instruments on several NASA space science missions. Koch then became a research associate in the United States Antarctic Programme, which included a yearlong stay with a winter-over at the Admunsen-Scott South Pole Station and a season at Palmer Station. While in this role, she served as a member of the firefighting and search and rescue teams. Koch then returned to space science instrument development as an electrical engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Space Department, where she contributed to instruments on missions including Juno and the Van Allen Probes. Koch then returned to remote scientific field work with tours at Palmer Station in Antarctica and the winter seasons at Summit Station in Greenland. Next, after joining the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), she continued work at remote scientific bases, serving as a field engineer in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and then as station chief of the American Samoa Observatory. Throughout her career, she was involved in technical instruction, volunteer tutoring, and educational outreach.
NASA Experience
Koch participated in the NASA Academy program at Goddard Space Flight Center in 2001 and worked as an electrical engineer at GSFC early in her career. She was selected in 2013 as one of eight members of the 21st NASA astronaut class and completed astronaut candidate training in 2015. In 2018, she was assigned to her first space flight, a long-duration mission on the ISS. Koch has been assigned as Mission Specialist I for NASA’s Artemis II mission.
Spaceflight Experience
Koch launched on March 14, 2019, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft with Roscosmos Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA Astronaut Nick Hague. She returned to Earth on February 6, 2020, on the MS-13 Soyuz spacecraft with Roscosmos Cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov and European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut Luca Parmitano. Serving as a Flight Engineer on the ISS for Expeditions 59, 60, and 61, she and her crewmates contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, earth science, human research, physical science, and technology development. Some of the scientific highlights from her missions include improvements to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which studies dark matter, growing protein crystals for pharmaceutical research, and testing 3D biological printers in microgravity. Koch conducted six spacewalks, including the first three all-women spacewalks, totalling 42 hours and 15 minutes. She has spent a total of 328 days in space.
After her spaceflight, Koch served as Branch Chief of the Assigned Crew Branch in the Astronaut Office. She is currently serving in a rotational position as the NASA Johnson Space Center Director’s Assistant for Technical Integration.
Christina Koch’s Awards/Honors
Neil Armstrong Award of Excellence, Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, 2020; Astronautics Engineer Award, National Space Club & Foundation, 2020; Global ATHENA Leadership Award, ATHENA International, 2020. NASA Group Achievement Award, NASA Juno Mission Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument, 2012; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Invention of the Year nominee, 2009; United States Congress Antarctic Service Medal with Winter-Over distinction, 2005; NASA Group Achievement Award, NASA Suzaku Mission X-ray Spectrometer Instrument, 2005.
