Life after the moon: Artemis II's Christina Koch steps down from active astronaut duty

Don't expect any of the Artemis II moon astronauts to fly again soon.

On Tuesday (Oct.

13), NASA announced that Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch will become the agency’s acting deputy chief engineer, effective Nov.

1.

"With this appointment, Koch will transition to management astronaut status and will no longer be eligible for future spaceflight assignments," NASA officials wrote in a statement on Tuesday .

Her three Artemis II crewmates had already shared their next moves, none of which put another spaceflight in play in the near future.

Mission commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover , both of NASA, became "emeritus" astronauts last month, a role that seems to include planning, advising and mentoring duties but no flights into the final frontier.

Glover will also work full-time at his alma mater , the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo.

"I'm grateful they will continue sharing what they learned with our astronauts, flight controllers and engineers as we prepare for Artemis III in 2027 and the missions that follow," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said of Wiseman and Glover in a Sept.

9 statement .

The fourth Artemis II astronaut, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency , announced a change of his own in July: He planned to become a reservist in the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he's also a colonel.

That move became official last month as well.

From left: The Artemis II crew — NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover — take time out for a group hug inside the Orion spacecraft on April 6, 2026. (Image credit: NASA) Artemis II sent the four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon in an Orion capsule.

It was the first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program and the first human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) since Apollo 17 in 1972.