HOUSTON — NASA has introduced its new class of astronaut candidates, some of whom may be among the first people to set foot on Mars.
The cadre — the 24th astronaut class in NASA's history, and the first new one since 2021 — was announced today (Sept. 22) during a ceremony here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
The newly unveiled astronaut candidates — five men and five women — were selected from a pool of more than 8,000 applicants. NASA's call for applications opened for about a month last year, just as the previous class graduated.
"This selection was challenging, competitive and very difficult, but what we have for you here today is a group of individuals who are not only exceptional but who will be inspirational for the United States of America, and for our planet," Norm Knight, NASA flight operations director, said during today's ceremony.
The group now waits for their training to begin. They'll soon report back to JSC, to take on lessons in spaceflight, spacewalks, engineering and every other skill an astronaut needs to survive in space.
They'll graduate in about two years, just as NASA aims to land astronauts on the moon as a part of the Artemis 3 mission. This new class will be too green for selection on Artemis 3, but if NASA's Artemis program continues under its current design, Artemis 3 will help lead to the establishment of a sustained presence on the lunar surface, as a proving ground for future crewed missions to Mars.
While some of these astronaut candidates (or ASCANs for short) may in fact stamp the first human boot prints in the Red Planet's rusty regolith, others may become the first NASA astronauts to live and work aboard a commercial space station in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The International Space Station (ISS) is heading for retirement in late 2030 or early 2031. NASA hopes to continue its LEO research operations once the ISS is gone but is preparing to shed the financial burden of ongoing station maintenance and management.
Instead, NASA plans to turn to commercial LEO destinations. Several companies are currently developing their own stations, including Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Vast Space. Depending on these projects' development timelines, there's a good chance that these new ASCANs will be the first NASA astronauts to live in space aboard a commercial outpost.
Here's a brief rundown of the newly announced astronaut candidates, with biographical details provided by NASA:
Meet the astronauts
Ben Bailey, 38, is a chief warrant officer 3 in the U.S. Army. Bailey, who's from Charlottesville, Virginia, holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia. He's also a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate who has accumulated more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different types of aircraft.
Lauren Edgar, 40, is from Sammamish, Washington. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth sciences from Dartmouth College and a master’s and doctorate in geology from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She has worked with NASA's Mars rover missions for 17 years and has also served as the deputy principal investigator for the Artemis 3 Geology Team.
Adam Fuhrmann, 35, a major in the U.S. Air Force, is from Leesburg, Virginia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and two master’s degrees — one in flight test engineering from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and one in systems engineering from Purdue University. He has logged 2,100 flight hours in 27 different types of aircraft, including 400 combat hours in support of Operations Freedom’s Sentinel and Resolute Support.
Cameron Jones, 35, also a major in the U.S. Air Force, is from Savanna, Illinois. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jones is also a test pilot with more than 1,600 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft, including 150 combat hours.
Yuri Kubo, 40, is from Columbus, Indiana. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in electrical and computer engineering, both from Purdue University. He worked at SpaceX for 12 years in various roles, including launch director for Falcon 9 launches. Most recently, Kubo served as senior vice president of engineering at the company Electric Hydrogen.
Rebecca Lawler, 38, is from Little Elm, Texas. She's a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and an experimental test pilot who has logged more than 2,800 flight hours in more than 45 types of aircraft. Lawler holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and master’s degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and the National Test Pilot School. She also flew as a "hurricane hunter" for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and, most recently, was a test pilot for United Airlines.
Anna Menon, 39, is from Houston. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University. Menon previously worked in the Mission Control Center at JSC, supporting medical hardware and software on the ISS. She has already been to space, reaching the final frontier in September 2024 on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which featured the first-ever private spacewalk. Most recently, she served as a senior engineer at SpaceX.
Imelda Muller, 34, is from Copake Falls, New York and is a former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. She earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University and a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. She's an anesthesiologist who has provided medical support for Navy diver training at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at JSC.
Erin Overcash, 34, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, is from Goshen, Kentucky. She holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s in bioastronautics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She's also a test pilot with more than 1,300 flight hours in 20 different types of aircraft; she has landed on aircraft carriers 249 times. Overcash was also part of the Navy’s World Class Athlete Program, an experience that allowed her to train with the USA Rugby Women’s National Team at the Olympic Training Center.
Katherine Spies, 43, is from San Diego. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California and a master’s in design engineering from Harvard University. She also graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot school and served as a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and experimental test pilot; she accumulated more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 types of aircraft. Most recently, Spies was director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation.
NASA has high hopes for the new class, which could take part in some historic missions over the coming years.
"You are America's best and brightest, and we're going to need America's best and brightest, because we have a bold exploration plan for the future," acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said during today's event.
"We are going back to the moon," he added. "This time, we're going to stay, and from what we learn on our mission to the moon, we're going to go to Mars, and we're going to go beyond, into the unknown."
And the U.S. is going to notch that moon goal before China does, Duffy stressed.
"I'll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA, or beat America, back to the moon," he said. "We are going to win."
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