When European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano commanded the International Space Station in 2019, Christina Koch was his flight engineer. The pair spent six months together in orbit before returning to Earth on the same Soyuz spacecraft. Now Koch is preparing to fly to the Moon, and Parmitano says the mission she is about to undertake will change everything.
Koch will fly alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, and Canadian Space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth on a 10-day mission. The crew will not land on the lunar surface. The mission is a crewed flyby, designed to demonstrate that the systems needed for deep space travel are ready for what comes next.
