LONDON, ONTARIO — Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen has been selected as the only non-American crew member for NASA's Artemis II mission to orbit the Moon. The mission marks the first crewed journey to travel around the Moon in more than 50 years.

Hansen joined the Canadian Space Agency in 2009 and was selected for the Artemis II mission fourteen years later. The 10-day mission will take the crew farther from Earth than any human has traveled before.

The Artemis II crew includes mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch. Hansen will serve alongside the three American astronauts on the lunar orbit mission.

"To do something that has never been done before means that your team is very likely to face failure," Hansen said. "I like the fact that in space, we are committed to bold goals to the extent that we will not let periodic failure stop our forward progress."

Hansen, 50, grew up on a farm near London, Ontario. As a child, he saw an encyclopedia page featuring Neil Armstrong and an astronaut on the Moon from the 1969 Apollo mission. He transformed his treehouse into an imaginary rocket ship and later joined the air cadets youth programme in his teens.

He studied space science and physics at university and was a cadet at the Royal Military College of Canada. In 1995, during his first year at the military college, he met astronaut Chris Hadfield and asked for his email address, receiving it on the spot. Hadfield served as his mentor throughout his astronaut training.

Hansen became a fighter pilot flying CF-18s out of the army base in Cold Lake, Alberta, and worked with North American Aerospace Defense Command. "Jeremy has been getting ready for this flight since he was five years old," Hadfield said.

For the mission, Hansen is carrying four Moon-shaped pendants, each with a birthstone representing his wife and three teenage children. His blue spacesuit features a mission patch he commissioned Anishinaabe artist Henry Guimond to design, with contributions from Dave Courchene III of Sagkeeng First Nation, Manitoba. The heptagonal shape of the patch and the animals on it refer to indigenous teachings guiding people to treat one another with love, respect, courage, and humility.

He said the patch is his way of recognising the Indigenous peoples in Canada and their traditional knowledge. He expressed anticipation about viewing Earth during the first hour of space flight and seeing the Moon in the foreground with Earth hanging in the distance.