Brown graduate selected for NASA's Artemis program

Brown graduate Jessica Meir still has a chance to achieve her childhood dream of exploring the Moon with her selection for NASA’s Artemis program.

She was picked for the astronaut corps in 2013, taking her first space mission to the International Space Station in 2020, Brown University reported. Her 200 plus days on board include an historic all-woman spacewalk with fellow astronaut Christina Koch.

Meir and Koch are among the nine women and nine men selected for the Artemis team announced in December. Missions may start taking flight this year with a crew landing on the Moon as early as 2024.

“We’re going to establish a presence there, we’re going to learn from that, and then we’re going to propel on to Mars from there. So it is absolutely a tremendous time to be a part of all of this,” Meir told Brown University.

Brown made an initial connection with the space program through Brown, where she took a class with Jim Head, a planetary scientist. He helped train Apollo-era astronauts and conducted research in lunar geology.

“During her tenure at Brown, she took my introductory Geo 5 ‘Earth, Moon and Mars’ course and got the highest grade ever,” Head said.