Tag: Astronauts

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NASA hits new milestones with latest class of astronauts

Lineup of newly named NASA astronaut candidates
NASA’s Class of 2025 astronauts include Ben Bailey, Cameron Jones, Katherine Spies, Erin Overcash, Adam Fuhrmann, Lauren Edgar, Yuri Kubo and Imelda Muller (from left, top row), plus Anna Menon and Rebecca Lawler nestling in the A’s of the NASA logo. (NASA Photo)

NASA has named the next 10 members of its astronaut corps, and one of those 10 is a geologist with plenty of space research experience who hails from the Pacific Northwest.

Lauren Edgar — who regards Sammamish, Wash., as her hometown — is part of the first class of astronaut candidates in which the women outnumber the men. It’s also the first class to include someone who has already gone into orbit on a commercial spacecraft, and who set a spaceflight record to boot.

NASA’s Class of 2025 was introduced today at a ceremony conducted at Johnson Space Center in Houston, with members of Congress and other VIPs in attendance.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy noted that more than 8,000 people applied for this year’s spots. “We picked the best and the brightest, the most skilled, the best-looking, the best personalities to take these 10 spots,” he said. “One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface, which is very, very cool.”

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‘Earthrise’ astronaut Bill Anders dies in plane crash

NASA astronaut Bill Anders suiting up for Apollo 8 in 1968
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders adjlusts his helmet while suiting up for his 1968 moon mission. (NASA Photo)

Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who snapped the iconic “Earthrise” photo of our planet as seen from lunar orbit, died today in a plane crash in waters off the San Juan Islands.

The 90-year-old spaceflier’s son, Greg Anders, confirmed his father’s death in an interview with The Associated Press and said the family was “devastated.”

“He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly,” he told AP.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson paid tribute to Anders in a posting to the X social-media platform. “In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give,” Nelson wrote. “He traveled to the threshold of the moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration. We will miss him.”

Anders is best-known around the globe as the lunar module pilot who wielded the camera during Apollo 8’s mission. But decades after that round-the-moon trip, he remained active on the Pacific Northwest aviation scene as the founder of the Heritage Flight Museum in Burlington, Wash. He and his family moved to Orcas Island in the San Juans in 1993 — and later took up residence in Anacortes, Wash.

The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office said a report came in at around 11:40 a.m. PT today that an older-model airplane plunged into the water off the coast of Jones Island as it flew from north to south. Seattle-area resident Phillip Person captured video of the crash.

San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said a search was conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Coast Guard reported that a Fish & Wildlife dive team recovered Anders’ body after more than four hours of searching.

Based on an incident report from the Federal Aviation Administration, Anders was the pilot and sole occupant of the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident.

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Orbite is raising funds for spaceflight training programs

Illustration: Interior view of Orbite astronaut training facility
Artwork shows an interior view of Orbite's future Astronaut Training and Spaceflight Gateway Campus. (Orbite Illustration)

Orbite Space, a venture that aims to offer down-to-Earth spaceflight training programs on a “try before you fly” basis, is raising more capital amid the company’s preparations for an expansion of operations.

The financial arrangements were reported this week in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the filing, Orbite reports an equity offering of $6.775 million and says that $2.725 million of the offering has already been sold. The company says those amounts include the conversion of previously issued convertible securities. So far, seven investors have taken part in the offering, according to the SEC filing.

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Orbite begins the countdown to space training programs

Orbite clients on zero-G airplane flight
Participants in an astronaut orientation session float during a zero-G airplane flight in France in 2021. (Orbite Photo)

After getting its start in Seattle and testing its business model in France and Florida, a space travel venture called Orbite is ready to start signing up customers for private-sector astronaut training programs.

And although it’ll be a while before those programs begin in earnest, Orbite CEO Jason Andrews says the first 500 people to make a refundable deposit will be in for some astronaut-worthy experiences between now and then.

“What we are announcing today is just the beginning,” he said.

Orbite plans to invite early-stage customers in its Founders Club to attend a series of space-adjacent events, starting with a rocket-launch watch party in Florida next spring and continuing with gatherings that could include an underwater adventure in the Florida Keys and a trip to Antarctica.

Andrews said Founders Club members could spend part of their $5,000 pre-booking deposit on one of those tours, or put all the money toward a training program at Orbite’s Astronaut Training and Spaceflight Gateway Campus in Florida.

That training facility, mapped out by French industrial designer Phillippe Starck, is due to be built at a site that’s yet to be disclosed in the area around Florida’s Space Coast and Orlando. Protracted business negotiations led to delays in the development schedule, but the facility is currently set to open in 2026, Andrews said.

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Citizen astronaut is still seeking out new frontiers

Chris Sembroski
Chris Sembroski was one of four citizen astronauts on the Inspiration4 mission. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

KIRKLAND, Wash. — It’s been seven months since Chris Sembroski splashed down at the end of the world’s first all-civilian orbital space mission, but his drive to seek out new frontiers is still going strong.

The 42-year-old data engineer from Everett, Wash., won his spot on last September’s philanthropic Inspiration4 space trip thanks to a friend of his who won a lottery, but weighed too much to take advantage of the prize.

For months, Sembroski took time off from his day job at Lockheed Martin to train with his three crewmates: Jared Isaacman, the billionaire tech CEO who organized and paid for the mission; Hayley Arceneaux, a cancer survivor who now works for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; and Sian Proctor, a geology professor who parlayed her talents in art and business to win a “Shark Tank”-style contest.

Their training included a Mount Rainier climb, zero-G and high-G airplane rides, and hours upon hours of instruction from SpaceX. It all came to a climax with the foursome’s launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, followed by three days of experiments and outreach activities that raised more than $240 million for St. Jude.

A follow-up series of space missions, known as the Polaris Program, is expected to blaze more new trails for citizen astronauts — and generate even more contributions for cancer research.

Sembroski, meanwhile, is starting a new job as a data analytics engineer at DB Engineering in Redmond, Wash. In an interview conducted last week during a space industry social event at SigmaDesign’s Kirkland office, Sembroski talked about how he found out he was getting a free trip to orbit, what he experienced during the mission, and what he expects from his next adventure.

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Who’s an astronaut? The FAA weighs in

Jeff Bezos gets a custom-designed astronaut pin from former NASA astronaut Jeff Ashby. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Hundreds of deep-pocketed tourists are likely to take suborbital space trips as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, as well as the Virgin Galactic venture founded by fellow billionaire Richard Branson, ramp up their commercial operations.

But will they all get astronaut wings?

The answer appears to be no, if you go by the Federal Aviation Administration’s newly issued guidelines for its commercial space astronaut wings program. Those guidelines suggest that astronaut wings can go only to crew members on a licensed spacecraft who contribute to flight safety and rise above the 50-mile altitude mark.

Which leaves a big question: Where exactly will the line be drawn?

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NASA names ‘Artemis Team’ for future moon trips

Artemis astronauts
Mask-wearing astronauts on the Artemis Team share a laugh during a news briefing. (NASA via YouTube)

NASA today named the first 18 astronauts of its “Artemis Team” for missions to the moon — and two of the teammates trace their roots to Washington state.

One of the pair, Anne McClain, was born in Spokane and went on to serve a six-month stint aboard the International Space Station in 2018-2019. She took on two spacewalks during her time in orbit, but because of a flap over spacesuit sizes, she narrowly missed out on being part of a high-profile, all-woman spacewalk.

Now she has another chance at making history, as one of the candidates to become the first woman to set foot on the moon.

She played down the gender angle during a news briefing today.

“When I was up on space station, we never even thought about genders or races or religions — or nationalities, even — until somebody asked us about them,” McClain said through a mask that she wore to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. “So it has actually made us reflect on the reasons, and my takeaway is that the strongest teams are the most diverse teams.”

The other woman on the team with Washington state roots is Kayla Barron, who considers Richland her hometown and was named to the astronaut corps in 2017. She hasn’t yet been in space, but she has experience with living in close quarters by virtue of her service as a Navy submarine warfare officer.

Barron also has another connection to the Seattle tech community: She earned her master’s degree in nuclear engineering at the University of Cambridge, thanks to a scholarship funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The first Artemis astronauts were introduced by Vice President Mike Pence during a meeting of the National Space Council, held today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

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NASA makes plans for astronauts to go suborbital

Blue Origin New Shepard
Blue Origin employees test procedures for getting spacefliers into the New Shepard suborbital spaceship at the company’s launch facility in West Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

NASA says it’ll formulate a plan to assess the safety of suborbital spacecraft — such as Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship or Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane — so that astronauts, researchers and other space agency personnel can be cleared for takeoff.

Today’s announcement, and the release of an official request for information, follows through on hints about the plan that NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine dropped last week.

The effort will be spearheaded by a suborbital crew office within NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which has been overseeing the development of SpaceX and Boeing spacecraft for orbital trips to and from the International Space Station.

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Virgin Galactic, NASA team up for orbital space trips

Charles Simonyi
Seattle billionaire Charles Simonyi took two privately funded trips to the International Space Station, in 2007 and 2009. (NASA Photo via Space Adventures)

Virgin Galactic says it has signed an agreement with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas to develop a new readiness program for private-sector astronauts heading to the International Space Station.

Theoretically, such astronauts could include the likes of Tom Cruise, who is looking into making a movie at the space station, according to NASA. “I’m all for that,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said last month. “We’re going to do what we can to make that happen.”

Virgin Galactic declined to comment on which customers or companies it might be partnering with, but the company said the newly established program would identify candidates interested in purchasing a ride to the space station, procure their transportation to orbit, and arrange for on-orbit resources as well as resources on the ground.

Some elements of the orbital training program would make use of Spaceport America in New Mexico, Virgin Galactic’s base for commercial space operations.

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Astronaut and kids celebrate socks in space

A student from Seattle’s Rainier Prep listens to NASA astronaut Jessica Meir answer a question posed via an Earth-to-space video link. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Astronauts on the International Space Station get thick calluses on the tops of their feet instead of the bottoms, but today students tried out ways to make the final frontier a little friendlier for feet.

Not only did they get a chance to talk with NASA astronaut Jessica Meir about socks in space, over a video link between the space station and Seattle’s Museum of Flight, but they also ran their own experiment as part of an Astro Socks Challenge created by NASA and Microsoft Education.

The challenge, and the Earth-to-space chat, made a teachable moment out of a fact of life for long-duration spacefliers.

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