Pomona’s history-making astronaut Glover will be on NASA moon mission next year

This combination of photos shows, from left, astronauts Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman. On Monday, April 3, 2023, NASA announced the three Americans and one Canadian as the crew who will be the first to fly the Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. (NASA, CSA via AP)

NASA on Monday, April 3, named the four astronauts who will fly to the moon by the end of next year — one woman and three men, including pioneering astronaut and Pomona native Victor Glover.

The three Americans and one Canadian were introduced during a ceremony in Houston, home to the nation’s astronauts as well as Mission Control.

“This is humanity’s crew,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.

The mission’s commander, Reid Wiseman, will be joined by Glover, an African American naval aviator; Christina Koch, who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a woman; and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. All are space veterans except Hansen.

Glover, who was born in Pomona and graduated from Ontario High School, served as pilot and second-in-command for the Resilience SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon before his return from the International Space Station in May, 2021.

Glover tweeted an image of our NASA space suits — three bearing patches of the U.S. flag and one with a Canadian maple-leaf patch.

“This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate and it’s so much more than the four names that have been announced,” said Glover.

This is the first moon crew to include a woman and someone not from the U.S. — and the first crew in NASA’s new moon program named Artemis. Late last year, an empty Orion capsule flew to the moon and back in a long-awaited dress rehearsal.

During Apollo, NASA sent 24 astronauts to the moon from 1968 through 1972. Twelve of them landed. All were military-trained test pilots except for Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who closed out that moon landing era alongside the late Gene Cernan.

Provided this next 10-day moonshot goes well, NASA aims to land two astronauts on the moon by 2025 or so.

NASA picked from 41 active astronauts for its first Artemis crew. Canada had four candidates.

Hometown hero Glover, 44,  grew up in Pomona, graduated from Ontario High and earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (he’s also got three Masters degrees). Glover is married to Dionna Odom, and they have four children.

Glover, a Navy commander, aviator and test pilot, became the first Black astronaut to serve on the International Space Station last year, arriving on a Crew Dragon capsule built by Hawthorne-based SpaceX on Nov. 16, 2020.

Glover was first selected an astronaut in 2013 and logged just under 3,000 hours flying 40 different aircraft before landing that role.

MSNBC named him one of the 23 most influential Black Americans alive today, a list that included Vice President Kamala Harris.

During his time on board the space station, Glover kept in touch with the world below through Twitter and through direct contacts with schoolkids and other engagements over livestream broadcasts. He said he was captivated as a kid by rockets and the early Space Shuttle missions, and the same holds true for young people today finding inspiration.

“The shuttle was an amazing thing to watch as a kid. The SpaceX boosters coming back and landing on the ships. Those things captivate people. That grabs their heart and then you have the opportunity to fill their brains,” he told students in 2021 during a livecast from the space station. “Be resilient, be lifelong learners and be good teammates. I think those things are recipes for success no mater what you do… You can look at the news and see that the world needs the best that we can muster. It needs the best that we can offer each and every day.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report