Jeremy Hansen will be among the crew of the American space agency (NASA) for the "Artemis II" mission in lunar orbit, and he will also be the first Canadian to carry out this mission.

NASA announced the names of the four astronauts in a press conference this morning at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"I am very happy and honored at the same time to be part of the Artemis crew," Hansen said, the 47-year-old son of London, Ontario, a former pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force where he flew a CF-18 fighter jet.

The other three astronauts participating in the mission are Americans Reid Wiseman, the mission commander, Victor Glover, and American Christina Hammock.

Hansen will also be a flight engineer during the mission in which the Orion capsule will reach lunar orbit, but none of the crew members will actually set foot on its surface.

Hansen will also be the first non-American to travel beyond missions related to the shuttle program. He was previously selected simultaneously with David Saint-Jacques in May 2009 by the Canadian Space Agency (ASC / CSA).

Saint-Jacques was also the last Canadian to go to space, in 2018 on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that lasted 204 days.

The Canadian Space Agency and NASA jointly selected the Canadian astronaut who will participate in the Artemis II mission.

In addition to Hansen, the Canadian Space Agency has three astronauts currently in service: David Saint-Jacques, Joshua Kutryk, and Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons.

She is the only woman among the four and also the youngest.

This Canadian presence in the Orion capsule is not a gift from the sky. Canada is designing the intelligent robotic system "Canadarm3" which will be installed on the future lunar Gateway space station.

Thanks to this participation in the Artemis program, Canada gets two seats on space flights to the moon and in potential scientific experiments onboard the Gateway. Another Canadian will later participate in a mission in the program.