Jeremy Hansen ‘pumped’ about historic trip around the moon

NASA's new moon rocket, Artemis II, makes its way from the Vehicle Assembly Building to pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen says getting humans to fly around the far side of the moon is good for humanity.

Speaking to reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as NASA rolled the Artemis II rocket to its launch pad, Hansen said he has been staring at the moon a lot more recently as the impending mission enters its final preparation stages with a potential launch window opening as soon as early February.

The 49-year-old astronaut from London, Ont., will serve as mission specialist during Artemis II, becoming the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, marking a historic achievement for Canada.

The five-million-kilogram SLS rocket — the vehicle designed to launch the Orion spacecraft — is being transferred from NASA’s vehicle-assembly building to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, about 6.5 kilometres away. The rollout was expected to take about 12 hours.

His crewmates are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch. Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972 — the year of the final Apollo mission.

He said the Canadian Space Agency was invited by NASA to participate in the Artemis mission and Canadians rose to the challenge by starting to develop new robotic systems for deep space.

“We’re working on lunar surface stuff now, so we’ll just bring that workforce to bear to meet joint collective objectives,” he says.

“I’m actually pretty pumped to see that, because, you know, in just a few weeks you’re going to see four humans fly around the moon, and if we’re doing that now, imagine what we can do next. I’m pretty pumped to see that come to fruition.”

Before the end of the month, the crew and mission team will conduct a wet dress rehearsal — a simulated launch — at the space centre. The management team assess when to launch after that. NASA has identified several launch dates over the next few months, with the earliest being Feb. 6. It plans to hold the mission no later than April.

Following the roughly 10-day mission, the craft is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

In addition to Hansen, fellow Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons, 37, of Calgary, is serving as Hansen’s backup and will be supporting the crew from the ground control.

In late November 2022, NASA launched Artemis I, involving an NASA Orion spacecraft that did not contain a crew and orbited the moon before returning to Earth. That 25-day mission was also delayed.

Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press