Artemis 2 Astronaut Jeremy Hansen Steps Down from Active Duty in September

Full text

The first non-American to reach the moon is ready for a new mission.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen , best known for his flight around the moon in April on NASA's Artemis 2 mission, will step back from active astronaut duty in September.

Hansen, who's also a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), will next serve as a reservist to "enable the vital work happening in Canada with respect to space," the astronaut wrote Monday (July 6) in a statement on X.

"Our future depends on a fierce continuation of Canadian innovation and exploration in space," Hansen added. "The technological breakthroughs and economic benefits born from this sector are vital for our country and the world, and I am as determined as ever to push that work forward."

Space sovereignty has come under renewed focus in recent months in Canada. Long-standing efforts at a homegrown launch capability, for example, received a wave of Canadian defense funding in March, with $200 million CDN ($140 million) offered to an in-development spaceport in Nova Scotia over 10 years, plus additional money to eventually get Canadian-made rockets into orbit. Hansen, an astronaut for 17 years, went to the Maritime Launch Services spaceport to attend a suborbital launch last month.

But Hansen's role in recent years also includes significant strides in space diplomacy: In 2026 alone, he and his three Artemis 2 crewmates have been seen at the White House, with congressional committee representatives and at the president's State of the Union address , also making similar-tier stops in Canadian politics. Just last week, he attended both Independence Day and Canada Day national celebrations.

Part of Hansen's messaging at these events is evident in this June 11 X post : "Canada and the United States have been close collaborators in space exploration for over six decades," he stated.

A long road to space

Hansen, 50, has been flying since the age of 12, first with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, according to his official CSA biography . He graduated quickly to gliding and private piloting before serving as a fighter pilot for the RCAF. After growing up in the London, Ontario area somewhat near Toronto, Hansen served in multiple locations across Canada, most prominently as a CF-18 fighter pilot with the 441 Tactical Fighter Squadron and 409 Tactical Fighter Squadron. Hansen also worked on NORAD (North American Air Defense) projects as combat operations officer at 4 Wing Operations.

In May 2009, at age 33, Hansen was one of two recruits for the Canadian astronaut corps selected that year, and he became fully qualified as an astronaut in 2011. To the surprise of many, he did not receive his first flight assignment for an incredible 14 years after initial selection, when the Artemis 2 crew was announced on April 3, 2023.

The wait was in part because Canada's approximately 2% contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), through robotics programs like Canadarm2, means a CSA astronaut gets to fly a long-duration mission there just every five or six years at current flight rates. (Some Canadians have also reached the station as private astronauts, or on behalf of NASA.)

For perspective: During Hansen's tenure, he was not fully qualified for a CSA mission when Robert Thirsk flew to the ISS in 2009 (before the space shuttle 's retirement, when long-duration missions were allocated differently), or for most of the training that Chris Hadfield did ahead of his own 2012-13 mission to the orbiting lab.

David Saint-Jacques, Hansen's slightly older classmate from 2009, flew in 2018-19. The next ISS mission, by CSA astronaut Josh Kutryk this September, will have a longer gap because — ultimately, and very simply put — he was switched from a delayed Boeing Starliner mission to SpaceX 's Crew-13.

But astronauts never sit idle. Aside from the usual mission support and background work at NASA, Hansen helped develop the tools and procedures for a complex spacewalk to repair a an instrument outside the ISS designed to hunt for elusive dark matter , which NASA once described as "four years in the making."

Hansen also served as what he called a " den mother " for NASA's 2017 astronaut class, an approximately two-year posting to be the first-ever Canadian manager of their training schedules.

"The buck stops with me," he told Space.com back then. "If we get to the end and they don't have the training they need, I'll be the one answering the questions about why was that not completed."

Moon work

Then program changes intervened. NASA's human spaceflight plans beyond the ISS sharpened in 2017 into returning humans to the moon, and luckily for Artemis (as this has not always been the case) the change has stuck through several presidential administration changes.

CSA was an early signatory to the Artemis Accords , with a commitment of hardware as well. (The initial promise was a Canadarm3 robotic arm to operate on a planned moon-orbiting space station called Gateway. However, with NASA recently deciding to build a moon base in Gateway's stead , what happens next with international partners is under negotiation, although Canadarm3's CSA contract continues with the company MDA Space.)

CSA's commitment secured two Canadian astronaut seats aboard Artemis missions, and the consortium decided to award Canada a seat on the very first crewed mission: Artemis 2. Canadian space industry representatives widely expected that would be Hansen's mission, not only due to his qualifications, but because Canada recruited Kutryk and Jenni Gibbons in 2017, who alongside Saint-Jacques were the only active astronauts at this time. Gibbons would go on to serve as CSA's backup astronaut for Artemis 2, as well as the CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator) during the mission's lunar flyby, in which she served as the direct voice link between mission control in Houston and the crew in the Orion spacecraft.

But Hansen, visited by Space.com in Houston on the day he was announced as an Artemis 2 crewmate, expressed modesty. "It really isn't about me. I feel a great sense of pride for Canada," he said, adding words he would often repeat in the following few years: "It was so awesome to see NASA, the United States, showcasing Canada as part of this mission. It's not as a gift, but because we bring real value."

The Artemis 2 crew in space during their epic moon mission in April 2026. Jeremy Hansen is in the center of the back "row." (Image credit: NASA) In between training for the first moon mission in 50 years alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman , Victor Glover and Christina Koch , Hansen's message through the three years before liftoff was one of international and national collaboration. His mission patch , as the CSA noted in a description, included contributions with "elements of Anishinaabe culture" as well as from Turtle Lodge in Sagkeeng First Nation, where Hansen did a vision quest during his mission training. Numerous Canadians played front-line roles on Artemis 2, including Gibbons serving as capcom during the lunar flyby.

Artemis 2's 10-day mission included numerous scientific, historic and cultural milestones. The astronauts traveled farther from Earth than any people ever had , for example, and witnessed a unique solar eclipse not long after passing beyond the far side of the moon. They observed flashes of meteors on the lunar surface, took high-definition photos of the regolith, and spoke with politicians, reporters and school children about their experience from space.

Moreover, what we now know as " moon joy " was evident among the four astronauts. As one example, they shared an emotional group hug on camera on April 6, when the world learned a nomination would be put forward to name a lunar crater for Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.

At a NASA event shortly after the April 10 mission splashdown, Hansen said staying on the "joy train" as a crew took effort, but he added that what everyone witnessed among the crew was also possible on Earth. "We are a mirror, reflecting you," he said.