NASA's Artemis II moon astronauts will join a very exclusive club next week.
President Donald Trump will award those spaceflyers the Congressional Space Medal of Honor next Friday (Aug. 28) at Johnson Space Center in Houston to recognize their historic journey around the moon this past April.
The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) and will feature NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, President Trump and the Artemis II astronauts. You'll be able to watch it live when the time comes.
Artemis II sent NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day trip around Earth's nearest neighbor. It was the first crewed voyage beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, when the Apollo 17 astronauts returned home from the moon.
The mission's success was a huge step for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a base near the lunar south pole in the coming years.
The Congressional Space Medal of Honor is the highest award that the U.S. government can bestow upon an astronaut. It's possible that only Wiseman, Glover and Koch will receive it next week; NASA's media advisory about the event states that Trump will give the medal to "each of NASA's Artemis II crew members," suggesting that Hansen might not be included. (The award is not limited to American citizens.)
Thirty people have received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to date. They are:
- Neil A. Armstrong
- Frank Borman
- Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.
- John H. Glenn, Jr.
- Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
- Alan B. Shepard
- John W. Young
- Thomas P. Stafford
- James A. Lovell
- Shannon W. Lucid
- Roger B. Chaffee
- Edward H. White, II
- William M. Shepherd
- Rick D. Husband
- William C. McCool
- Michael P. Anderson
- Kalpana Chawla
- David M. Brown
- Laurel B. Clark
- Ilan Ramon
- Francis R. (Dick) Scobee
- Michael J. Smith
- Judith A. Resnik
- Ronald E. McNair
- Ellison S. Onizuka
- Gregory B. Jarvis
- Sharon Christa McAuliffe
- Robert L. Crippen
- Douglas G. Hurley
- Robert L. Behnken
