Meet Christina Koch, The Grand Rapids Native Heading To The Moon

Today, NASA is accomplishing a feat it has not done in over 50 years: returning to the moon for the first time since 1972. Artemis II and its four astronauts are taking a 10-day trip around the Moon and back to Earth. The four astronauts are Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and astronaut Christina Koch.

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These courageous astronauts represent many firsts in space travel, including the first Black man (Glover), the first Canadian (Hansen), and the first woman (Koch) to go beyond Earth's orbit. But it's also a little extra special for us in Grand Rapids because Christina Koch is a Grand Rapids native. She'll be representing both Grand Rapids and America when she takes flight this afternoon.

Meet Christina Koch, Astronaut & Grand Rapids Native

Christina Koch has been an astronaut since 2013, serving as a flight engineer on the International Space Station (ISS) on Expedition 59, 60, and 61. She was born in Grand Rapids but grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. However, according to her NASA biography, she spent her summers here working on her family's farm. She may have moved, but she never abandoned her roots.

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This isn't her first time in space. She spent 328 consecutive days in space on the ISS, currently holding the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, and she was also one of the two women on the 2019 all-female spacewalk. While in space, she worked on various sustainability projects and performed maintenance on the ISS.

But curiously, according to the National Air and Space Museum, her biggest contributions could come from studies of her body that could provide insights into how long periods in low gravity affect the body. Either way, Koch's role in space travel will be felt for years to come.

Grand Rapids is no stranger to astronauts. If you've been to the Grand Rapids Public Museum, you've likely been to the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium, named after the astronaut who tragically died on board Apollo 1 when a fire swept through the command module during a preflight test.

Artemis II is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 6:24 p.m., with conditions currently at 80%. You can watch footage of the launch on NASA's official YouTube account and on NASA+, the agency's free streaming service.