The crew of the historic Artemis II lunar flyby mission will receive the United States' highest space honor, NASA officials announced. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are set to receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on 28 August, according to the US space agency.
NASA's website indicates that only 30 astronauts have previously received this honor, including Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit Earth and later served four terms in the US Senate.
Record-breaking mission
Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen were selected for the medal by President Donald Trump after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recommended them. The Artemis II crew broke Apollo 13's record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth during their 10-day mission, which began on 1 April. They reached 252,756 miles (406,771 km) as they swung above the lunar surface, surpassing the 1970 record of 248,655 miles as part of US plans to land on the moon again and eventually reach Mars.
Additionally, Hansen, who is from Canada, became the first non-US citizen to fly to the moon.
Ceremony details and reactions
"This was not easy," Wiseman told reporters after the Artemis II mission ended with a textbook splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. "Before you launch, it feels like it's the greatest dream on Earth. And when you're out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It's a special thing to be a human, and it's a special thing to be on planet Earth."
The medal ceremony at the Johnson Space Center in Houston comes four months after Trump hosted the Artemis II crew at the White House. The occasion was marked by the president, who turned 80 in June, telling the astronauts: "I would have had no trouble making it – I'm physically very, very good." NASA listed an 11am start time for the ceremony, with a video live stream available at www.nasa.gov/live.
Political context and past recipients
Trump has sought to embrace the Artemis II crew's achievements despite his administration's proposal to cut NASA's budget by 23%, including a 46% reduction for space science initiatives, for the 2027 fiscal year beginning on 1 October. A House commerce, justice and science subcommittee led by Trump's Republican party responded by advancing its own NASA budget proposal that would maintain the science projects the president has aimed to eliminate.
Previous Congressional Space Medal of Honor recipients include astronauts killed in the Apollo I fire and the explosions of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken were the last astronauts to receive the medal before the Artemis II crew. Hurley and Behnken in 2020 became the first to launch into orbit on a commercial spacecraft, and they accepted the medal in 2023 during Joe Biden's presidency.
The ceremony on 28 August will mark the first time the medal is awarded to astronauts from a lunar mission in over five decades, highlighting the crew's historic achievement and the ongoing political debate over NASA's future funding.
