N.C. State grad Koch poised for Artemis II trip around moon

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(The Center Square) – Christina Koch, a college and high school graduate from her time growing up in North Carolina, is among the first quartet to travel to the moon in 54 years.

Artemis II, a mission of NASA, is a scheduled trip to the moon – no footsteps, no orbit, just going out and back in less than 10 days. Launch for Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen is planned for Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. Eastern from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Koch, pronounced Cook, has been an astronaut since 2013 and holds the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days. The Grand Rapids, Mich., native was part of the first all-female spacewalk.

Koch grew up in Jacksonville, attending White Oak High, then North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham. She earned her bachelor’s in electrical engineering and physics from N.C. State in 2001 and her master’s in electrical engineering a year later. The university has awarded her an honorary PhD, and former Gov. Roy Cooper bestowed the state’s highest civilian honor in 2024 with the North Carolina Award.

In a 2023 interview with then-Chancellor Randy Woodson on campus in Raleigh, she said N.C. State was her choice so she “could be close to home.”

“I could be at a public university, which is meant to support the people that are local, that are North Carolinians and that have so much pride in this state,” Koch said. “And N.C. State just represented doers, places where entrepreneurship was valued, places where learning that theoretical side, but also building upon it and contributing back to the world, was important.”

The first day in flight will be an orbit of the moon, confirming all is working as should be aboard the spacecraft. The next four days will be the 244,000 miles journey to the moon. Day 6 carries the crew about 5,000 miles past the moon before returning. Like Apollo crews, Artemis returns to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harris Schmitt were on the moon for three days in December 1972 on the Apollo 17 mission. Americans haven’t been back since, with Cernan’s footprints the last on the surface.

For the Artemis missions, if all goes as planned, in 2028 the Artemis IV crew will be the next to step foot on the moon.

Wiseman, a retired Navy captain, is commander of the crew. He’s a native of Baltimore and resident of Hunt Valley, Md. Glover is a Pomona, Calif., native, Navy captain and veteran of 24 combat missions. Hensen is a native of London, Ontario, and will be the first Canadian to travel to the moon.

Launch and mission coverage of Artemis II will be available through YouTube, NASA said.