Coming into Monday (Apr. 3) morning there was a chance a Fort Saskatchewan man would be announced as part of NASA's Artemis II mission around the moon.
Joshua Kutryk was born in Fort Saskatchewan and was recently chosen as one of four Canadian candidates being considered for the mission.
Unfortunately, as NASA leaders took to the stage in Houston, Texas, it was announced that Kutryk would not be part of the crew.
Instead, astronaut Jeremy Hansen was instead chosen as the sole Canadian to join the Artemis II crew.
The crew and their roles in the mission are as follows:
- Christina Koch (USA) - mission specialist
- Jeremy Hansen (CAN) - mission specialist
- Victor Glover (USA) - pilot
- Reid Wiseman (USA) - commander
The Artemis crew will pilot the Orion spacecraft around the moon in a 10-day mission starting in November 2024.
It will be the first time that humans have entered deep space since the Apollo program's last mission in 1972.
NASA is hopeful that this is a step toward a manned mission to Mars sometime in the late 2030s.