The first woman to fly around the Moon will not fly again
Between 1968 and 1972, 24 American astronauts traveled to the Moon, and twelve of them walked on it. Not one was a woman. It took more than half a century for people to go back, and when they did, in April 2026, one of the four on board was Christina Koch.
Before the Moon, Koch spent 328 days in a row aboard the International Space Station, a record for a woman on a single flight. Up there she also took part in the first spacewalks done entirely by women.
In April 2023, NASA named her to the Artemis II crew as the first woman on a lunar mission. The flight around the Moon and back was planned to take about ten days.
October 2026 brought a different kind of news. From November 1, Koch becomes NASA's acting deputy chief engineer, and with that she can no longer be assigned to a spaceflight. She has seen her Moon. Now her job is making sure the missions that follow are ready to fly.
Sources
- NASA. NASA Names Astronauts to Next Moon Mission, First Crew Under Artemis. NASA News Release, 3 April 2023.
- NASA. NASA Names Astronaut Christina Koch Acting Deputy Chief Engineer. NASA News Release, 13 October 2026.
- NASA Science. Moonwalkers (Who Has Walked on the Moon?). science.nasa.gov, page last updated 27 May 2026.