NASA has announced the selection of a four-member team for its upcoming Artemis II lunar mission, which includes the first woman and the first African American set to participate in a moon mission.

The team is expected to conduct the first crewed trip around the moon in more than 50 years as early as next year. The team comprises Christina Koch, an engineer who holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, and Victor Glover, a US Navy aviator who was part of the second crewed flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Glover will be the first astronaut of color on a lunar mission. The other members of the team are Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian ever chosen for a moon mission, serving as a mission specialist, and Reid Wiseman, who will be the Artemis II mission commander, having prior experience on the International Space Station. NASA introduced the quartet at a televised news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The Artemis II mission is the first crewed flight of an Apollo successor program aimed at eventually returning astronauts to the surface of the moon later this decade and establishing a sustainable base there, ultimately paving the way for human exploration of Mars.