Artemis II crew to receive congressional space medal of honour from President Trump

The four astronauts who made history aboard the Artemis II lunar flyby mission are set to receive the United States’ highest space honour, NASA has announced. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on 28 August at a ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

According to NASA, only 30 astronauts have previously received the prestigious honor. The recipients include Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, and John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth before later serving four terms in the US Senate. Despite the medal’s name, the four Artemis II astronauts were selected by President Donald Trump after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recommended them for the award.

The Artemis II crew made history during their 10-day mission, which began on 1 April. The astronauts traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them, surpassing the distance record set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. During their journey around the Moon, Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen reached 252,756 miles (406,771km) from Earth. That exceeded Apollo 13’s previous record of 248,655 miles and marked another major milestone in the US effort to return humans to the Moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

Reflecting on the mission after the crew safely returned to Earth, Wiseman said: “This was not easy,” Wiseman said to reporters after the Artemis II mission safely ended with a textbook splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. “Before you launch, it feels like it’s the greatest dream on Earth. And when you’re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It’s a special thing to be a human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.”

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The medal ceremony is taking place four months after Trump welcomed the Artemis II astronauts to the White House. During that event, the president, who turned 80 in June, praised the crew and said: “I would have had no trouble making it, I’m physically very, very good.” NASA has listed the ceremony as beginning at 11am, with a livestream of the event available through NASA’s website. The recognition comes as the Trump administration seeks significant reductions to NASA’s budget. The administration has proposed a 23% overall cut to NASA funding for the 2027 fiscal year, which begins on 1 October, including a proposed 46% reduction in space science spending.

However, a House commerce, justice and science subcommittee led by Trump’s Republican Party has advanced an alternative NASA funding proposal that would preserve several science programmes targeted for cuts by the administration. The Congressional Space Medal of Honor has previously been awarded to astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire and in the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, as well as other pioneering spacefarers.

Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken were the most recent astronauts selected for the honor before the Artemis II crew. In 2020, Hurley and Behnken became the first astronauts to launch into orbit aboard a commercial spacecraft. They received their medals in 2023 during the presidency of Joe Biden.