WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- As part of NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission, four
crew members are preparing to launch for a long-duration stay
aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Commander Anne
McClain and Pilot Nichole
Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut
Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi,
and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mission Specialist Kirill Peskov will join astronauts at the
orbiting laboratory no earlier than February
2025.
The flight is the 10th crew rotation with SpaceX to the station
as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. While aboard, the
international crew will conduct scientific investigations and
technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future
missions and benefit people on Earth.
Selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013, this will be McClain's
second spaceflight. A colonel in the U.S. Army, she earned her
bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and
holds master's degrees in Aerospace Engineering, International
Security, and Strategic Studies. The Spokane, Washington, native was an instructor
pilot in the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter and is a graduate of
the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. McClain has more
than 2,300 flight hours in 24 rotary and fixed-wing aircraft,
including more than 800 in combat, and was a member of the U.S.
Women's National Rugby Team. On her first spaceflight, McClain
spent 204 days as a flight engineer during Expeditions 58 and 59
and was the lead on two spacewalks, totaling 13 hours and 8
minutes. Since then, she has served in various roles, including
branch chief and space station assistant to the chief of NASA's
Astronaut Office.
Ayers is a major in the U.S. Air Force and the first member of
NASA's 2021 astronaut class named to a crew. The Colorado native graduated from the
Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs with a bachelor's degree in
Mathematics and a minor in Russian, where she was a member of the
academy's varsity volleyball team. She later earned a master's in
Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University in Houston. Ayers served as an instructor pilot
and mission commander in the T-38 ADAIR and F-22 Raptor, leading
multinational and multiservice missions worldwide. She has more
than 1,400 total flight hours, including more than 200 in
combat.
With 113 days in space, this mission also will mark Onishi's
second trip to the space station. After being selected by JAXA in
2009, he flew as a flight engineer for Expeditions 48 and 49 became
the first Japanese astronaut to robotically capture the Cygnus
spacecraft. He also constructed a new experimental environment
aboard Kibo, the station's Japanese experiment module. Since his
spaceflight, Onishi became certified as a JAXA flight director,
leading the team responsible for operating Kibo from JAXA Mission
Control in Tsukuba, Japan. He holds a bachelor's degree in
Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Tokyo and was a pilot for All Nippon
Airways, flying more than 3,700 flight hours in the Boeing 767.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission also will be Peskov's first
spaceflight. Before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2018, he earned
a degree in Engineering from the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation School
and was a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft for airlines
Nordwind and Ikar. Assigned as a test-cosmonaut in 2020, he has
additional experience in skydiving, zero-gravity training, scuba
diving, and wilderness survival.
For more than two decades, people have lived and worked
continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing
scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making
research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The station is a
critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges
of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities
in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing
human space transportation services and destinations as part of a
robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA's Artemis campaign is
underway at the Moon, where the agency is preparing for future
human exploration of Mars.
Find more information on NASA's Commercial Crew Program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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SOURCE NASA