Tenerife – September 15, 2026 -- Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen will appear at STARMUS VIII in Tenerife and La Palma from October 17-22, 2026, fifteen years after the festival's 2011 founding event brought together Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Alexei Leonov in the Canary Islands.
Artemis II crew follows the same route once taken by Apollo-era legends
Wiseman, Glover and Hansen flew around the Moon and back earlier this year alongside Christina Koch, becoming part of the first crewed lunar mission in more than five decades and traveling farther from Earth than any humans before them. Their October appearance places three of the four Artemis II astronauts on the same festival stage where Armstrong, Aldrin and Leonov once spoke in 2011.
STARMUS marks the 10th anniversary of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication
The medal, created in 2016 by Stephen Hawking and STARMUS, has previously gone to Hans Zimmer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Buzz Aldrin, Jane Goodall, Brian May, Christopher Nolan, Sir David Attenborough and Sir Ridley Scott. STARMUS VIII will mark the award's tenth year during the festival week.
Founders Garik Israelian and Brian May built STARMUS around direct dialogue between explorers and the public
Since its 2011 launch, nine Apollo-era astronauts have joined STARMUS events, including several of the twelve men who walked on the Moon. At STARMUS V in Zurich in 2019, six Apollo astronauts -- Buzz Aldrin, Walt Cunningham, Rusty Schweickart, Al Worden, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt -- appeared together to mark Apollo 11's 50th anniversary, an event that also featured musicians Hans Zimmer, Brian May, Rick Wakeman and Steve Vai.
Chris Hadfield and Julie Payette join the Artemis II crew on the STARMUS VIII program
Former ISS commander Chris Hadfield and former Canadian Governor General and astronaut Julie Payette will appear alongside the Artemis crew. The broader 2026 lineup includes Geoffrey Hinton, Steven Pinker, Christiana Figueres and May-Britt Moser, plus Nobel laureates, astronauts, technology leaders and artists.
Festival opens October 17 with a concert headlined by Brian May, Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman
The opening night in Santa Cruz de Tenerife will combine music and science programming while marking the Hawking Medal's tenth anniversary. STARMUS's public outreach record includes hundreds of free lectures across more than 35 universities reaching over 20,000 students, and free science camps that have drawn more than 250,000 attendees through over 130 workshops and interactive exhibits.