Jeremy Hansen is almost ready to launch on the first astronaut mission to the moon with a Canadian on board. His launch as mission specialist for the moon-circling Artemis 2 with three NASA astronauts (commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch) will take place as early as February 2026.
To generate public interest and knowledge, Hansen participated in a livestreamed Q&A Tuesday (Nov. 25) as part of a series of media events this week. The bilingual event was hosted on CSA media channels and was hosted by entrepreneur and venture capital investor Fred Bastien. (SpaceQ watched on YouTube, where live interpretation was provided in English for all French-language discussion.)
For Hansen and the CSA, the event was an opportunity to stress some of the main policy points of Artemis 2 to a wider audience: that Canada earned the opportunity over decades of the astronaut program, and that innovative technologies (including the Canadarm series, which helped pay for Hansen’s seat) helped along the way. Hansen also stressed – as he did in an exclusive SpaceQ interview last month – that he sees the mission as a launching point for Canadians to imagine what could be possible next, even outside of spaceflight.
Hansen admitted to both minor launch nerves as well as always being aware that his training time is precious, for his crewmates and for the thousands supporting the mission from Canada, the U.S. and other countries. But he said the fear is mixed with excitement, because he has decades of experience in training and with fighter jets that has taught him to “compartmentalize” emotions or to turn them into “a heightened sense of alertness [that] you can use it to your advantage; Just don’t let it own you.”
When asked about the leadup to launch, Hansen framed his thinking as this: “In some moments, I’m like, super excited. I’m thinking, ‘Wow, this is coming.’ I’m starting to feel that. And then the next moment, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’ve got really get to work. Time is running out, and we still have work to do.”
It sounds like much like a space station mission, Hansen’s daytime schedule is full up – and that review time also falls into the evenings and weekends, where he said he tries to reflect on things that are harder to accomplish “in the big sims that involve hundreds of people.”
Hansen drew parallels between the military – he is a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel – as well as contingency discussions at Mission Control. In Houston, he said, “You’re not allowed to just bring a problem. [You need] to bring solutions, or potential solutions, or ideas of where our solution may be hidden.”
The process is called failure, impact, workaround, Hansen explained. A controller will at first identify the failure in the system, and tell the flight director about it. The controller will then explain the impact of the failure so that the flight director and the team understand what the failure means. Then the controller will offer a workaround – a possible solution – so that the mission can keep going, as best as possible, even with the change. Hansen said this type of thinking is helpful in society at large, and added that in the Canadian armed forces, “I’m very proud of them, that they are a body of problem-solvers for our country.”
Hansen and fellow CSA astronaut David Saint-Jacques were selected as astronaut candidates in May 2009 following a nation-wide selection process including 5,000 applicants. Following full qualification as astronauts, Saint-Jacques flew in space in 2018; the wait is because Canada has a 2.3% share of ISS contributions, which now equates to an astronaut flight once every five or six years, and other astronauts had priority first.
Hansen, now scheduled to have his first flight nearly 17 years after being selected, paid tribute to the family members and teachers who guided him towards space and aviation opportunities – such as the Canadian Air Cadets – when a picture from the Apollo program inspired him to learn about space as a child.
When asked if he or his circle ever had doubts of success, Hansen said: “People were always saying ‘Yes, this is possible. You know, you should dream big. You can. These things can happen, and you should go for it.’ So, no one was ever discouraging me, except myself.”
Hansen also shared some lighter things he’s hoping to see from the mission. “A good breakfast” before launch will be a must, given the packed first day of operations before going to trans-lunar injection. Seeing the moon is a natural highlight, although he noted the time when Artemis 2 is expected to be on the back side (in a position when they are out of contact with Earth) will be busy with cameras, pointing at planned targets.
Hansen also paid tribute to the Indigenous Elders who he has spoken to throughout training, including a vision quest he participated in with Turtle Lodge. The vision quest included four days with no food or water, under supervision from the lodge. (Hansen said he had a moment of disbelief regarding the four days: “I just thought, ‘There’s just no way; how do you do this?’ But it’s obvious they do. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years.”)
From that experience, Hansen said he is not only applying the knowledge culturally, but technically. “We have these off-nominal scenarios where if we get a hole in the spacecraft after we’ve left Earth orbit, we have to try to survive all the way to landing in our spacesuits.” He said days in a spacesuit would be “tricky from a human waste point of view, [but] it’s given me a lot of confidence that there would be a lot of value in in using that technique to manage the human body in that environment.”
While the launch date is not finalized, and is subject to flux, the mission is expected to launch between February and April 2026. That said, several key tests of systems stand between now and then, and the U.S. government is only funded through the end of January 2026 pending a new deal by Congress. Hansen said the big milestone to watch for will be crew quarantine: “When we go into quarantine, that’s two weeks’ notice, and we’ll know a precise launch date by that.”