President Trump will present the Artemis II astronauts with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor during an Aug. 28 ceremony that will be streamed.
The crew members of the Artemis II moon mission that captivated the world in April are due to receive the highest honor reserved for astronauts.
President Donald Trump will present the four astronauts with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor during a ceremony Friday, Aug. 28 in Houston. The Artemis II crew NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency will join an exclusive club of 30 spacefarers who have received the recognition in the last five decades.
Interested in watching the ceremony? NASA and its commercial partners like Amazon will provide plenty of ways to ensure you can keep up with the event live this morning.
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Here’s how you can watch Trump award the medal to the Artemis II astronauts.
President Trump to award Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II astronauts
Trump, who met with the Artemis II crew at the end of April in the White House, will award the four astronauts who flew on NASA’s Artemis II moon mission with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on Friday, Aug. 28.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will join Trump for the ceremony, which will take place at 11 a.m. ET at the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, the U.S. space agency announced in a press release.
What is the Congressional Space Medal of Honor?
The Congressional Space Medal of Honor is awarded to astronauts whose feats in human spaceflight are considered “exceptionally meritorious,” according to NASA. While Congress authorizes the president to present the prestigious honor, it’s the NASA administrator who recommends candidates.
Just 30 astronauts have received the medal since 1978.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will be the first astronauts to receive the honor in about three years. In 2023, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley received the medal for their flight in 2020 on the Demo-2 mission, a test flight to and from the International Space Station validating SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule.
How to watch NASA coverage of launch on YouTube, Netflix, more
NASA’s live coverage of the ceremony will be available to stream on the agency’s free NASA+ app, as well Amazon Prime, discovery+ and YouTube. Netflix, which provides coverage of select NASA programming, is not advertising the ceremony on its platform.
What was the Artemis II mission?
The second mission under NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis program, Artemis II marked the first time humans flew near the moon in more than 50 years and set the stage for a potential crewed landing as early as 2028.
The four astronauts rode in NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which hitched a ride to space atop NASA’s powerful 322-foot Space Launch System rocket during an April 1 launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the 10-day spaceflight, the Orion vehicle carried the astronauts around the moon and back to Earth without landing on the lunar surface.
Along the way, Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen surpassed a record set during the infamous Apollo 13 mission in 1970 – traveling a historic 252,756 miles from Earth. They also bore witness to sights of the moon’s far side never before seen by human eyes while traveling as close as 4,067 miles above the surface during a lunar flyby.
Three of the astronauts also made individual history. Hansen became the first Canadian selected for a moon mission, while Koch became the first woman and Glover the first Black man.
Artemis II crew also up for Congressional Gold Medal
The astronauts of Artemis II are also up for a Congressional honor considered one of the most prestigious civilian awards in the nation.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona – a former astronaut – joined retiring Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon to introduce bipartisan bills June 24, in both the House and Senate to award the Artemis II astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal.
If the legislation passes and is signed by Trump into law, it would make the Artemis II astronauts the first crew to receive a Congressional Gold Medal since the honor was bestowed on the Apollo 11 crew in 2009 – 40 years after that historic mission.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com