This
story was updated at 1:10 p.m. EDT.
NASA on
Monday unveiled the nine Americans making up its newest class of astronaut
candidates, a group that will never fly on the space shuttle.
The six-man,
three-woman astronaut
class of 2009 is NASA's first batch of new spaceflying recruits in five
years. The candidates are expected to report to NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas, in August to begin two years of training.
"This is a
very talented and diverse group we've selected," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's
space operations chief, in a statement. "They will join our current astronauts
and play very important roles for NASA in the future."
NASA's
three aging space shuttles are due
to retire in 2010 after completing construction of the International Space Station.
The new astronaut candidates, therefore, will likely only train to fly aboard
the space station, Russian Soyuz vehicles, and NASA's shuttle replacement - the
Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares rockets tapped to ferry spaceflyers
to orbit and back
to the moon by 2020. The 11 astronauts of NASA's 2004 class are all
expected to have flown once on a shuttle by the fleet's retirement next year,
NASA officials have said.
"In
addition to flying in space, astronauts participate in every aspect of human
spaceflight, sharing their expertise with engineers and managers across the
country," Gerstenmaier said.
The 2009
astronaut class is a relatively young group, with ages ranging from 30 to 43.
NASA selected the nine from a field of 3,500 applicants to make up the new
class, its 20th group since the original seven Mercury astronauts were unveiled
in 1959.
The group
is a mix of military and civilians that includes: a technical intelligence
officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), two NASA flight surgeons, a
space station flight controller, a sprint-running molecular biologist, as well
as two Navy test pilots, a U.S. Air Force test pilot and the special assistant
to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
"I
think this is a thrilling time to be part of the space program, and I feel very
fortunate to be starting as an astronaut candidate at this particular
time," said Kathleen Rubins, 30, the molecular biologist, in a NASA
interview.
Here's
a brief look at NASA's new astronaut class:
- Serena M. Aunon, 33, of League City, Texas; University
of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's space shuttle,
International Space Station and Constellation programs; born in
Indianapolis, Ind. Aunon holds degrees from George Washington University,
the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and UTMB.
- Jeanette J. Epps, 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical
intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency; born in
Syracuse, N.Y. Epps holds degrees from LeMoyne College and the University
of Maryland.
- Jack D. Fischer, Major U.S. Air Force, 35, of Reston,
Va.; test pilot; U.S. Air Force Strategic Policy intern (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Boulder, Colo. Fischer is a graduate of
the U.S. Air Force Academy and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Michael S. Hopkins, Lt. Colonel U.S. Air Force, 40, of
Alexandria, Va.; special assistant to the Vice Chairman (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Lebanon, Mo. Hopkins holds degrees from
the University of Illinois and Stanford University.
- Kjell N. Lindgren, 36, of League City, Texas;
University of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's Space
Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in
Taipei, Taiwan. Lindgren has degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy,
Colorado State University, University of Colorado, the University of
Minnesota, and UTMB.
- Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, 30, of Cambridge, Mass.; born
in Farmington, Conn.; principal investigator and fellow, Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and conducts research trips to
the Congo. Rubins has degrees from the University of California-San Diego
and Stanford University.
Rubins is not the youngest person to
be selected for NASA's astronaut corps. Astronauts Sally Ride and Tammy
Jernigan were both 26 at the time of their selections in 1978 and 1985,
respectively.
- Scott D. Tingle, Commander U.S. Navy, 43, of Hollywood,
Md.; born in Attleboro, Mass.; test pilot and Assistant Program Manager-Systems
Engineering at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Tingle holds degrees from
Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth) and Purdue University.
- Mark T. Vande Hei, Lt. Colonel U.S. Army, 42, of El
Lago, Texas; born in Falls Church, Va.; flight controller for the
International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center, as part of
U.S. Army NASA Detachment. Vande Hei is a graduate of Saint John's
University and Stanford University.
- Gregory
R. (Reid) Wiseman, Lt. Commander U.S. Navy, 33, of Virginia Beach, Va.;
born in Baltimore; test pilot; Department Head, Strike Fighter Squadron
103, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, based out of Oceana, Va. Wiseman is a
graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University.
Currently,
there are about 85 active astronauts in NASA's
spaceflying ranks. The nine members of the 2009 class will join the
astronaut corps after their two-year training regime.
NASA
spokesperson Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters told SPACE.com that the nine NASA
recruits will be joined by new astronauts from Japan, Canada and Europe, who
will also train with them. In May, the Japanese and Canadian space agencies each
added two new astronauts to their small cadre of spaceflyers, while the
European Space Agency unveiled six new astronauts representing Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The new
astronauts are all expected to report for training duty in late August,
Cloutier-Lemasters said.
"We look
forward to working with them as we transcend from the shuttle to our future
exploration of space, and continue the important engineering and scientific
discoveries aboard the International Space Station," Gerstenmaier said.
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