Christina Hammock Koch of the United States will be the envy of all women across the world when she becomes the first woman to orbit the moon.
While males have travelled to the moon and even spent time on its surface, women have not.
All of that is about to change, with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA, stating that a four-person crew will journey to the moon next. It will include a black astronaut as well as a female astronaut for the first time.
Koch will go around the Moon on the Orion spacecraft.
According to NASA, the other astronauts are Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman.
Koch, understandably on cloud nine, declared the mission “awesome.”
“We’re going to ride the world’s most powerful rocket, reach thousands of miles in altitude, test all the systems, and then head to the Moon.”
She stated that they will transport the “world’s excitement, aspirations, and dreams” to the Moon on this expedition.
The Artemis II mission is a 10-day journey around the moon that will precede NASA’s first Moon landing mission in more than 40 years. Humans stepped on the Moon for the final time in 1972.
Christina Hammock Koch was appointed in 2013.
She served as flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) for Expedition 59, 60 and 61.
Christina Koch has a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space. She also participated in the first all-female spacewalk.
Koch has been assigned as Mission Specialist I of NASA’s Artemis II mission. (Agencies)
