President Honors NASA’s Artemis II Crew with Highest US Space Award

President Donald J. Trump awarded NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on Friday for their service during the Artemis II mission. The ceremony took place at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, making them the first recipients of the medal since 2023.

Artemis II launched on April 1 and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10. The crew were the first to fly on NASA's SLS rocket, aboard the Orion spacecraft they named Integrity. They traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than any humans before, surpassing the Apollo 13 record from 1970, and flew a total of 695,081 miles including a lunar flyby.

The medal, authorized by Congress in 1969, recognizes exceptional bravery and contributions to the nation and humanity; there are now 34 recipients, including the posthumous crews of Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia. President Trump praised the crew's courage, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman credited the achievement to NASA's workforce and partners, saying the program will build on this success to return to the lunar surface.

This first crewed Artemis mission paves the way for Artemis III in 2027, a low Earth orbit test flight demonstrating rendezvous and docking between Orion and commercial human landing systems, and Artemis IV in 2028, which will return American astronauts to the lunar surface.