Col. Jeremy Hansen has achieved a significant milestone for Canada within the last 48 hours during NASA’s Artemis II mission, with more noteworthy events on the horizon.
In a groundbreaking move, he will set another precedent for the Canadian Space Agency by conducting a live press conference from a location in outer space never before reached by a Canadian. Hansen, aged 50, is scheduled to address journalists from the Orion spacecraft at 1:10 a.m. ET, with the session expected to last approximately 20 minutes, as confirmed by the CSA.
The agency stated that Hansen will provide insights into the Artemis II mission and field questions from Canadian media during the live broadcast, which will be streamed by CBC News.
Hansen, along with his fellow astronauts Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch, embarked on their journey from Florida at 6:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Their mission, a crucial voyage around the moon and back, marks the initial phase of NASA’s grand plan to return humans to the lunar surface.
Shortly after liftoff, Hansen officially became the first Canadian to venture into deep space as Artemis II transitioned into high Earth orbit. The Artemis II mission is set to propel its crew approximately 405,000 kilometers into space, marking the farthest distance humans have ever traveled.
During their first day in space, the astronauts completed initial tests, familiarized themselves with the cameras for Earth photography, and addressed minor issues aboard the crew cabin, including communication glitches, a brief toilet malfunction, and an Outlook software hiccup for Wiseman.
If the mission proceeds as scheduled, the crew will circle the moon, witnessing a solar eclipse on the sixth day of their expedition. The mission is slated to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California, on April 10.
NASA’s Artemis program sees this mission as a pivotal moment, being the first crewed flight and a significant leap from the Apollo era. It also marks the return of astronauts to the moon’s vicinity since Apollo 17 in 1972. NASA envisions that this mission will pave the way for the Artemis IV astronauts to touch down on the moon’s south pole by 2028, ahead of a planned crewed mission by China targeted for 2030.