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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — With a powerful launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen began his journey to the Moon aboard the Artemis II mission on Wednesday.
Just before liftoff, Hansen’s final message was broadcast: “We’re going for all humanity.”
Across Canada, crowds gathered at public viewing events, celebrating the historic moment as the spacecraft lifted off.
The 50-year-old astronaut from London, Ontario, is serving as mission specialist for Artemis II and is set to become the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
He is joined by veteran NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch.
The 10-day lunar fly-around will see humanity travel to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
It’s the first time that humans will see the far side of the moon.
The launch, which was originally scheduled for February, saw issues with the flight termination system in the hours before the successful launch.
Hansen sent his love to his family as he left crew quarters with his fellow astronauts Wednesday afternoon in the final hours before the launch window.
Catherine Hansen wrapped her arms around her children as her husband, standing behind a barricade in his bright orange spacesuit, said, “I love you,” and flashed a thumbs-up. He and the rest of the Artemis astronauts then boarded a vehicle that took them to the crew capsule.
Ahead of the launch, she said the family would try to take in every single moment.
“I’m really trying to encourage everyone — and very, very specifically myself — to be in that moment and to allow whatever emotions may come,” she told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. “There will be excitement, there will be exhilaration, there will be terror and fear.”
For the Hansen family, the mission marks the culmination of 16 years of preparation and the fulfilment of a lifetime dream.
Catherine Hansen, an accomplished obstetrician-gynecologist, met her husband in Moose Jaw, Sask., when she went to watch her brother get his Air Force pilot wings. Jeremy Hansen told her right away he planned to be an astronaut.
She said she initially thought it was “a crazy thing to say out loud,” but after a little contemplation decided that “if he’s saying it out loud, he must really mean it.”
“And as I got to know him, even over that day, weeks, months later, I realized he meant every word of it,” she said with a wide smile. “And we were going to do everything we could to make it happen.”
Jeremy Hansen was a fighter pilot when he became one of two recruits selected by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. Catherine Hansen said they had a look at their lives together, what they wanted and how they could both accomplish it.
“I cannot really explain to people how important it is to just lift each other up, and that’s exactly what we’ve done,” she said. “He’s done that with my work and my business. I’ve done that with him and his work.”
They’ve now been married 23 years — most of which they’ve spent connected to NASA.
To watch her husband live out his childhood dream “feels like no less than a miracle,” she said.
She said their family couldn’t have done it without the help of extended family and friends, the Canadian military, the space agency and other government supports.
