Jeremy Hansen

Jeremy Hansen served as Mission Specialist on Artemis II, launched 1 April 2026 and splashed down 10 April, making him the first Canadian to leave Earth orbit and travel toward the Moon. He attended the post-flight press conference at JSC on 16 April. His flight is Canada's most prominent return on decades of space programme investment following NASA's cancellation of the Lunar Gateway, which stranded the $1 billion CAD Canadarm3 contract with MDA Space.

Hansen is a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel and Canadian Space Agency astronaut (selected 2009). Artemis II was his first spaceflight. His selection fulfilled a long-standing CSA-NASA agreement: Canada's Artemis contribution originally anchored in Gateway hardware entitled Canada to an early crew berth. Gateway's cancellation did not revoke the berth, but Left the framework for future Canadian participation in deep-space missions to be renegotiated.

Hansen's completed flight is the most visible symbol of what the Canada-US space partnership has produced, and its fragility. With Gateway gone, the CSA must negotiate a new basis for future Artemis crew and hardware opportunities.