NASA names first woman, first Black astronauts for lunar flyby

STORY: Christina Koch, an engineer who already holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, was named as a mission specialist, along with Victor Glover, a U.S. Navy aviator, who was selected as the Artemis II pilot.

Glover, who was part of the second crewed flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, would become the first astronaut of color ever to be sent on a lunar mission.

Rounding out the four-member crew are Jeremy Hanson, the first Canadian ever chosen for a flight to the moon, as a mission specialist, and Reid Wiseman, an International Space Station veteran, named as Artemis II mission commander.

The Artemis II quartet were introduced at a televised news conference in Houston at the Johnson Space Center, NASA's mission control base.

Artemis II will mark the debut crewed flight - but not the first lunar landing - of an Apollo successor program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon's surface later this decade and ultimately establishing a sustainable outpost there, creating a stepping stone to future human exploration of Mars.