NASA astronaut Victor J. Glover Jr. is orbiting into history, piloting the Artemis II mission, a 10-day flight that will send humans around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, and placing him at the center of one of the agency’s most closely watched missions.
Glover, a U.S. Navy captain and veteran test pilot, serves as pilot aboard the Orion spacecraft alongside Commander Reid Wiseman, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The mission, which launched on April 2, is designed to test deep space systems and operations ahead of future lunar landings.
“We’ve had 25 continuous years of humans in low Earth orbit on the International Space Station, so over time, that training program has gotten to the point where we know what we really need to do,” Glover said in a 2025 interview with Cal Poly magazine. “But on this lunar mission, we’re testing the Orion capsule. We’re testing the suits. We’re testing the landing and recovery procedures. We’re testing the flight control team. And it’s a much more hostile environment because we’re so far from home.”
The Artemis II flight is expected to travel roughly 700,000 miles, looping around the moon before returning to Earth, marking a key step in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
Cody Kelly, deputy for National Affairs within NASA’s Search and Rescue Mission Office, said that he has complete faith in the astronauts on the Artemis II mission.“This crew and this team has been working for over a decade to perfect those processes and those techniques, and they should know that when they come back from the Moon on Artemis II that they’re going to be safely recovered,” he said on an episode of NASA’s “Curious Universe.”
Glover, who was selected as an astronaut in 2013, previously served as pilot on SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission and spent 168 days aboard the International Space Station, completing four spacewalks and multiple scientific operations. His career also includes more than 3,500 flight hours in over 40 aircraft and 24 combat missions.
Born in Pomona, California, Glover earned a degree in engineering from California Polytechnic State University, where he competed as a two-sport athlete in football and wrestling. His path from student-athlete to astronaut continues to resonate with those who have followed his career.
Glover is the first Black astronaut to travel into deep space, and the historic moment is being followed closely by his family and a trove of supporters across the country.
“We are going for our families,” Glover told “Curious Universe.”
