Trump to award NASA's Artemis II astronauts the Congressional Space Medal of Honor

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The ceremony will occur next Friday (Aug. 28).

four people in blue flights stand behind a man in a suit sitting at a fancy desk
President Donald Trump welcomed the four Artemis 2 astronauts (in blue flight suits) and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (in dark suit, in front of American flag) to the Oval Office on April 29, 2026. (Image credit: The White House)

NASA's Artemis II moon astronauts will join a very exclusive club next week.

President Donald Trump will award those spaceflyers the Congressional Space Medal of Honor next Friday (Aug. 28) at Johnson Space Center in Houston to recognize their historic journey around the moon this past April.

The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) and will feature NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, President Trump and the Artemis II astronauts. You'll be able to watch it live when the time comes.

Artemis II sent NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day trip around Earth's nearest neighbor. It was the first crewed voyage beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, when the Apollo 17 astronauts returned home from the moon.

The mission's success was a huge step for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a base near the lunar south pole in the coming years.

The Congressional Space Medal of Honor is the highest award that the U.S. government can bestow upon an astronaut. It's possible that only Wiseman, Glover and Koch will receive it next week; NASA's media advisory about the event states that Trump will give the medal to "each of NASA's Artemis II crew members," suggesting that Hansen might not be included.

Thirty people have received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to date. They are:

  • Neil A. Armstrong
  • Frank Borman
  • Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.
  • John H. Glenn, Jr.
  • Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
  • Alan B. Shepard
  • John W. Young
  • Thomas P. Stafford
  • James A. Lovell
  • Shannon W. Lucid
  • Roger B. Chaffee
  • Edward H. White, II
  • William M. Shepherd
  • Rick D. Husband
  • William C. McCool
  • Michael P. Anderson
  • Kalpana Chawla
  • David M. Brown
  • Laurel B. Clark
  • Ilan Ramon
  • Francis R. (Dick) Scobee
  • Michael J. Smith
  • Judith A. Resnik
  • Ronald E. McNair
  • Ellison S. Onizuka
  • Gregory B. Jarvis
  • Sharon Christa McAuliffe
  • Robert L. Crippen
  • Douglas G. Hurley
  • Robert L. Behnken

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Spaceflight and Tech Editor

Michael Wall is the Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers human and robotic spaceflight, military space, and exoplanets, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.