This is a list of
astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
s by year of selection: people selected to train for a
human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a
spacecraft
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...
. Until recently, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the advent of
suborbital flight
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital r ...
starting with privately funded
SpaceShipOne
SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "feathering" a ...
in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the
commercial astronaut
A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while represe ...
.
While the term astronaut is sometimes applied to anyone who trains for travels into space—including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists—this article lists only professional astronauts, those who have been selected to train as a profession. This includes national space programs and private industry programs which train and/or hire their own professional astronauts.
More than 500 people have trained as astronauts. A list of everyone who has flown in space can be found at ''
List of space travelers by name
This is a list of space travellers by first flight. The table is listed in chronological order from the date of first flight. The table adheres to the international definition of a space traveller; the Fédération Aéronautique Internationa ...
''.
__NOTOC__
North American X-15 Pilots Group (USA)
:Fourteen pilots were directly involved with the
X-15
The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set spee ...
, although only twelve actually flew the vehicles. There was no formal selection process, since everyone chosen was already a qualified test pilot.
:
Scott Crossfield
Albert Scott Crossfield (October 2, 1921 – April 19, 2006) was an American naval officer and test pilot. In 1953, he became the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound. Crossfield was the first of twelve pilots who flew the North America ...
and
Alvin White were the prime and backup North American Aviation test pilots who first became involved with the project. Air Force Captains
Iven Kincheloe
Iven Carl "Kinch" Kincheloe Jr. (July 2, 1928 – July 26, 1958) was an American pilot. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, in which he was recognized as a flying ace. He continued as a test pilot after the war, participating i ...
(prime pilot) and
Robert White (backup) were assigned to the X-15 in 1957. When Kincheloe was killed in an accident through a different rocket aircraft program, White became prime pilot and Captain
Robert Rushworth became his backup. The first NASA pilots were
Joseph Walker and
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
...
. Lieutenant Commander
Forrest S. Petersen
Forrest Silas Petersen (May 16, 1922 – December 8, 1990), ( VADM, USN), was a United States Navy aviator and test pilot. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air For ...
represented the Navy.
:Walker and Armstrong were eventually replaced by NASA pilots
John B. McKay (1960),
Milton Thompson (1963) and
William H. Dana (1965). White and Rushworth were succeeded by Captain
Joe Engle
Joe Henry Engle (born August 26, 1932) is an American pilot, aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight. He also flew three ...
(1963), Captain
William Joseph Knight (1964) and Major
Michael Adams (1966). The Navy selected Lieutenant Lloyd Hoover (1924-2016
) as Peterson's replacement, though he never trained or flew.
:As of 2022, the only surviving X-15 pilot is Joe Engle.
1958
June 25 – Man in Space Soonest (USA)
:
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
...
,
William B. Bridgeman,
Albert S. Crossfield,
Iven C. Kincheloe,
John B. McKay,
Robert A. Rushworth,
Joseph A. Walker,
Alvin S. White, and
Robert M. White
Robert Michael "Bob" White (July 6, 1924 – March 17, 2010) (Maj Gen, USAF) was an American electrical engineer, test pilot, fighter pilot, and astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane ...
.
:Nine test pilots from the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...
(NACA), the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
(USAF),
North American Aviation
North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F ...
(NAA), and
Douglas Aircraft Corporation
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...
were selected for the
Man in Space Soonest
Man In Space Soonest (MISS) was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to put a man into outer space before the Soviet Union. The program was cancelled on August 1, 1958, and was replaced by NASA's Project Mercury. Only two men from the progr ...
project, a USAF initiative to put a man in space before the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
did. The project was cancelled on August 1, but two of these men would later reach space: Walker made two
X-15
The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set spee ...
flights above 100 kilometers in 1963; and Neil Armstrong joined
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
in 1962 and flew in
Project Gemini
Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...
and
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
, becoming the first human to set foot on the Moon at 02:56
UTC July 21, 1969.
:The last surviving member of this group was Neil Armstrong; he died in 2012.
1959
April 9 –
NASA Group 1 – ''Mercury Seven'' (USA)
:
Scott Carpenter
Malcolm Scott Carpenter (May 1, 1925 – October 10, 2013) was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury ...
,
Gordon Cooper
Leroy Gordon "Gordo" Cooper Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004) was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot, United States Air Force pilot, and the youngest of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first human spa ...
,
John Glenn,
Gus Grissom
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer, pilot in the United States Air Force, and member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercur ...
,
Wally Schirra
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' f ...
,
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...
and
Deke Slayton
Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993) was a United States Air Force pilot, aeronautical engineer, and test pilot who was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts. He went on to become NASA's first ...
.
:The first group of astronauts selected by
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
were for
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
in April 1959. All seven were military test pilots, a requirement specified by President
Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
to simplify the selection process. All seven eventually flew in space, although one, Deke Slayton, did not fly a Mercury mission due to a medical disqualification, instead flying a decade later on the
Apollo–Soyuz mission. The other six each flew one Mercury mission. For two of these, Scott Carpenter and John Glenn, the Mercury mission was their only flight in the Mercury/
Gemini
Gemini may refer to:
Space
* Gemini (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac
** Gemini in Chinese astronomy
* Project Gemini, the second U.S. crewed spaceflight program
* Gemini Observatory, consisting of telescopes in the Northern ...
/
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
era. Glenn later flew on the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
.
:Three of the Mercury astronauts, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper and Wally Schirra, also each flew a mission during the Gemini program. Alan Shepard was slated to fly
Mercury 10 before its cancellation and was the original commander for the
Gemini 3
Gemini 3 was the first crewed mission in NASA's Project Gemini and was the first time two American astronauts flew together into space. On March 23, 1965, astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young flew three low Earth orbits in their spacecraft, ...
mission, but did not fly due to a medical disqualification. After surgery to correct the problem, he later flew as commander of
Apollo 14
Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at s ...
. He was the only Mercury astronaut to go to the Moon.
:Wally Schirra was the only astronaut to fly into space on all three types of spacecraft, though Gus Grissom was scheduled to be first to complete that feat before he
died in a fire on Apollo 1 during launchpad training. Gordon Cooper was a backup commander for
Apollo 10
Apollo 10 (May 18–26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo8) to orbit the Moon. NASA described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, and ...
, the "dress rehearsal" flight for the lunar landing, and would have commanded another mission—likely to have been
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...
, according to the crew rotation—but was bumped from the rotation after a disagreement with NASA management.
:Collectively, at least one member of the Mercury Seven flew on every NASA class of human-rated spacecraft (but neither the
Skylab
Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations in ...
nor
ISS
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...
space stations) through the end of the 20th century: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle.
:The last surviving member of this group was John Glenn; he died in 2016.
1960
March 7 – Air Force Group 1 (USSR)
:
Ivan Anikeyev
Ivan Nikolayevich Anikeyev (russian: Иван Николаевич Аникеев; 12 February 1933 8 August 1992) was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program for disciplinary reasons.
Senior Lieutenant Anikeyev, ag ...
,
Pavel Belyayev
Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev (russian: Павел Иванович Беляев; 26 June 1925 – 10 January 1970) was a Soviet fighter pilot with extensive experience in piloting different types of aircraft. He was the first commander of the cosmona ...
,
Valentin Bondarenko
Valentin Vasylovych Bondarenko ( uk, Валентин Васильович Бондаренко, russian: Валентин Васильевич Бондаренко; 16 February 1937 – 23 March 1961) was a Soviet fighter pilot selected in 1960 ...
,
Valery Bykovsky
Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky (russian: Вале́рий Фёдорович Быко́вский; 2 August 1934 – 27 March 2019) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three space flights: Vostok 5, Soyuz 22, and Soyuz 31. He was also backup for Vo ...
,
Valentin Filatyev
Valentin Ignatyevich Filatyev (russian: Валентин Игнатьевич Филатьев; 21 January 1930 – 15 September 1990) was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program for disciplinary reasons.
Senior ...
,
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Tr ...
,
Viktor Gorbatko
Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko (russian: Ви́ктор Васи́льевич Горбатко́; 3 December 1934 – 17 May 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7, Soyuz 24, and Soyuz 37 missions.
Early life
Viktor Vasilievich Go ...
,
Anatoli Kartashov
Anatoly Yakovlevich Kartashov (russian: Анато́лий Я́ковлевич Карташо́в; 25 August 1932 11 December 2005) was a cosmonaut in the Soviet Vostok program.
Early life and personal life
Anatoly Yakovlevich Kartashov was ...
,
Yevgeny Khrunov
Yevgeny Vasilyevich Khrunov (; 10 September 1933 – 20 May 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 5/Soyuz 4 mission.
Early life
Yevgeny Khrunov was born on 10 September 1933 to Vasily Yegorevich and Agrafena Nikolayevna. Nickname ...
,
Vladimir Komarov
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov ( rus, Влади́мир Миха́йлович Комаро́в, p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ kəmɐˈrof; 16 March 1927 – 24 April 1967) was a Soviet test pilot, aerospace engineer, and cosmonaut. ...
,
Alexei Leonov
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during th ...
,
Grigori Nelyubov
Grigory Grigoryevich Nelyubov (russian: Григо́рий Григо́рьевич Нелю́бов; 31 March 1934 – 18 February 1966) was one of the original 20 Soviet cosmonauts, who was dismissed from the Soviet space program in 1963 for ...
,
Andrian Nikolayev
Andriyan Grigoryevich Nikolayev ( Chuvash and russian: Андриян Григорьевич
Николаев; 5 September 1929 – 3 July 2004) was a Soviet cosmonaut. In 1962, aboard Vostok 3, he became the third Soviet cosmonaut to fly into s ...
,
Pavel Popovich
Pavel Romanovich Popovich (russian: Па́вел Рома́нович Попо́вич, uk, Павло Романович Попович, Pavlo Romanovych Popovych) (5 October 1930 – 29 September 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Popovich was the ...
,
Mars Rafikov,
Georgi Shonin
Georgy Stepanovich Shonin (; 3 August 1935 – 7 April 1997; born in Rovenky, Luhansk Oblast, (now Ukraine) but grew up in Balta of Ukrainian SSR) was a Soviet cosmonaut, who flew on the Soyuz 6 space mission.
Shonin was part of the original ...
,
Gherman Titov
Gherman Stepanovich Titov (russian: Герман Степанович Титов; 11 September 1935 – 20 September 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Y ...
,
Valentin Varlamov
Valentin Stepanovich Varlamov (russian: Валентин Степанович Варламов; 15 August 1934 – 2 October 1980) was a Russian jet pilot who was selected for List of astronauts by selection#1960, Air Force Group 1, the first int ...
,
Boris Volynov
Boris Valentinovich Volynov (russian: Бори́с Валенти́нович Волы́нов; born 18 December 1934) is a Soviet cosmonaut who flew two space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5, and Soyuz 21. Following the death of Alexei L ...
, and
Dmitri Zaikin
Dmitry Alekseevich Zaikin (russian: Дмитрий Алексеевич Заикин; 29 April 1932 – 20 October 2013) was a Soviet cosmonaut trainer.
Zaikin was born in Yekaterinovka, Rostov Oblast. He graduated from Military Fighter Pilot Sc ...
.
:The initial group of Soviet cosmonauts was chosen from Soviet Air Force jet pilots.
:As of 2021, the only surviving member is Boris Volynov.
April – Dyna–Soar Group 1 (USA)
:
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
...
,
William H. Dana,
Henry C. Gordon
Henry Charles Gordon (December 23, 1925 – September 24, 1996), (Col, USAF), was an American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and astronaut in the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.
Early life and education
Gordon was born in V ...
,
Pete Knight,
Russell L. Rogers,
Milt Thompson, and
James W. Wood
James Wayne Wood (August 9, 1924 – January 1, 1990), (Colonel (United States), Col, United States Air Force, USAF), was an American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and astronaut in the Boeing X-20 Dyna ...
.
:In April 1960, seven men were secretly chosen for the
Dyna-Soar
The Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar ("Dynamic Soarer") was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including aerial reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintena ...
program. Armstrong had previously been part of the
MISS
Miss (pronounced ) is an English language honorific typically used for a girl, for an unmarried woman (when not using another title such as "Doctor" or "Dame"), or for a married woman retaining her maiden name. Originating in the 17th century, it ...
program. Armstrong and Dana left the program in the summer of 1962.
:The last surviving member of this group was William H. Dana; he died in 2014.
1962
March 12 – Female Group (USSR)
:
Tatyana Kuznetsova,
Valentina Ponomaryova,
Irina Solovyova
Irina Solovyova, born on September 6, 1937, is a retired Soviet cosmonaut active from 1962–1969. Solovyova was born in Kireyevsk, Tula in Russia and she is known for being one out of the five women chosen to join the Soviet Union's all-female sp ...
,
Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova ( rus, Валентина Владимировна Терешкова, links=no, p=vɐlʲɪnʲˈtʲinə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə tʲɪrʲɪʂˈkovə, a=Valentina Tereshkova.ogg; born 6 March 1937) is an engine ...
, and
Zhanna Yorkina.
:On March 12, 1962, a group of five civilian women with parachuting experience was added to the cosmonaut training program. Only Tereshkova would fly. A leading Soviet high-altitude parachutist, 20-year-old
Tatyana Kuznetsova was, and remains, the youngest person ever selected to train for spaceflight.
September 17 –
NASA Group 2 – ''The Next Nine, aka'' ''The Nifty Nine'', ''The New Nine'' (USA)
:
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
...
,
Frank Borman
Frank Frederick Borman II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, and NASA astronaut. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moo ...
,
Pete Conrad
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999) was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer and aviator, and test pilot, and commanded the Apollo 12 space mission, on which he became the third person to ...
,
Jim Lovell
James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of th ...
,
Jim McDivitt
Jim or JIM may refer to:
* Jim (given name), a given name
* Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James
* Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy
* OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism The United Nations Security Council adopted United Nati ...
,
Elliot See
Elliot McKay See Jr. (July 23, 1927 – February 28, 1966) was an American engineer, naval aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut.
See received an appointment to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in 1945. He graduated in 1949 with a Ba ...
,
Tom Stafford,
Ed White, and
John Young John Young may refer to:
Academics
* John Young (professor of Greek) (died 1820), Scottish professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow
* John C. Young (college president) (1803–1857), American educator, pastor, and president of Centre Col ...
.
:A
second group of nine astronauts was selected by NASA in September 1962. All of this group flew missions in the
Gemini program
Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...
except Elliot See, who died in a flight accident while preparing for the
Gemini 9
Gemini 9A (officially Gemini IX-A) With Gemini IV, NASA changed to Roman numerals for Gemini mission designations. was a 1966 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the seventh crewed Gemini flight, the 13th crewed American flight ...
flight. All of the others also flew on Apollo, except for Ed White, who died in the
Apollo 1
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...
launchpad fire.
:Three of this group, McDivitt, Borman and Armstrong, made single flights in both Gemini and Apollo. Four others, Young, Lovell, Stafford and Conrad, each made two flights in Gemini and at least one flight in Apollo. Young and Lovell both made two Apollo flights. Conrad and Stafford also made second flights in Apollo spacecraft, Conrad on
Skylab 2
Skylab 2 (also SL-2 and SLM-1) was the first crewed mission to Skylab, the first American orbital space station. The mission was launched on an Apollo command and service module by a Saturn IB rocket on May 25, 1973, and carried NASA astronau ...
and Stafford in Apollo–Soyuz.
:Six of this group, Borman, Lovell, Stafford, Young, Armstrong and Conrad, made flights to the Moon. Lovell and Young went to the Moon twice. Armstrong, Conrad, and Young walked on the Moon. McDivitt was later Apollo Program Director and became the first
general officer
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
and would have been either the prime LM Pilot or backup commander for
Apollo 14
Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at s ...
, but left NASA due to a conflict between Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. John Young also later flew on the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
(
STS-1 and
STS-9) and would retire from NASA in 2004. He was both the first and last of his group to go into space.
September 19 – Dyna-Soar Group 2 (USA)
:On September 19, 1962,
Albert Crews (born 1929) was added to the Dyna-Soar program and the names of the six active Dyna-Soar astronauts were announced to the public.
1963
January 10 – Air Force Group 2 (USSR)
:
Yuri Artyukhin, Eduard Buinovski,
Lev Dyomin
Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (; 11 January 1926 – 18 December 1998) was a Soviet Union, Soviet Astronaut, cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This spaceflight was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but the docking fa ...
,
Georgy Dobrovolsky
Georgy Timofeyevich Dobrovolsky (russian: Гео́ргий Тимофе́евич Доброво́льский; 1 June 192829 June 1971) was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the three-man crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft. They became the world's ...
,
Anatoly Filipchenko
Major General Anatoly Vasilyevich Filipchenko (26 February 1928 – 7 August 2022) was a Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent. He flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 16 missions.
He was born in Davydovka, Voronezh Governorate, RSFSR. After leaving ...
,
Aleksei Gubarev
Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (russian: Алексе́й Алекса́ндрович Гу́барев; 29 March 1931 – 21 February 2015) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two space flights: Soyuz 17 and Soyuz 28.
Biography
Gubarev grad ...
, Vladislav Gulyayev,
Pyotr Kolodin
Pyotr Ivanovich Kolodin (russian: Пётр Иванович Колодин; 23 September 1930 – 4 February 2021) was a Soviet cosmonaut. Although he retired in 1983 without flying in space, Kolodin served non-flying assignments on several space ...
, Eduard Kugno, Anatoli Kuklin, Aleksandr Matinchenko,
Vladimir Shatalov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov (russian: Владимир Александрович Шаталов; December 8, 1927 – June 15, 2021) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, a ...
, Lev Vorobyov, Anatoly Voronov,
Vitaly Zholobov
Vitaly Mikhaylovich Zholobov (russian: link=no, Виталий Михайлович Жолобов; born 18 June 1937) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on Soyuz 21 space flight as the flight engineer.
Career
Zholobov joined the space progr ...
October 17, 1963 –
NASA Group 3 – ''The Fourteen'' (USA)
:
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin (; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module ''Eagle'' pilot on the 1969 A ...
,
William Anders
William Alison Anders (born 17 October 1933) is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, ...
,
Charles Bassett
Charles Arthur Bassett II (December 30, 1931 – February 28, 1966), (Major (United States), Major, United States Air Force, USAF), was an American electrical engineer and United States Air Force test pilot. He went to Ohio State University f ...
,
Alan Bean
Alan LaVern Bean (March 15, 1932 – May 26, 2018) was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut and painter; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astron ...
,
Eugene Cernan
Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh human being to ...
,
Roger Chaffee
Roger Bruce Chaffee (; February 15, 1935 – January 27, 1967) was an American naval officer, aviator and aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program.
Chaffee was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he became an Eag ...
,
Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to:
* Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician
* Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...
,
Walter Cunningham
Ronnie Walter Cunningham (born March 16, 1932) is a retired American astronaut. In 1968, he was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He was NASA's third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See), and has also been a ...
,
Donn Eisele,
Theodore Freeman
Theodore Cordy "Ted" Freeman (February 18, 1930 – October 31, 1964), was an American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. Selected in the third group of NASA astronauts in 1963, he was killed a year ...
,
Richard Gordon,
Russell Schweickart,
David Scott
David Randolph Scott (born June 6, 1932) is an American retired test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the seventh person to walk on the Moon. Selected as part of the third group of astronauts in 1963, Scott flew to space three times and c ...
,
Clifton Williams
Clifton Curtis Williams Jr. (September 26, 1932 – October 5, 1967), was an American naval aviator, test pilot, mechanical engineer, major in the United States Marine Corps, and NASA astronaut, who was killed in a plane crash; he never went in ...
:While four members of Group 3 died in accidents before ever reaching space—Chaffee in the
Apollo 1
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...
fire, Bassett, Freeman and Williams in crashes of NASA
T-38 jet trainers
A jet trainer is a jet aircraft for use as a trainer, whether for basic or advanced flight training. Jet trainers are either custom designs or modifications of existing aircraft. With the introduction of military jet-powered aircraft towards the ...
—the other ten all flew on the Apollo program. Aldrin, Bean, Cernan and Scott walked on the Moon. Five of them: Aldrin, Cernan, Collins, Gordon and Scott also flew missions during the Gemini program. Cernan would be the only astronaut from this group to fly to the Moon twice, being assigned to both
Apollo 10
Apollo 10 (May 18–26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo8) to orbit the Moon. NASA described it as a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, and ...
and
Apollo 17
Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on ...
, while Bean would command the
Skylab 3
Skylab 3 (also SL-3 and SLM-2) was the second crewed mission to the first American space station, Skylab. The mission began on July 28, 1973, with the launch of NASA astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma in the Apollo command ...
mission.
1964
January 25 – Air Force Group 2 Supplemental (USSR)
:
Georgi Beregovoi (1921 – 1995)
May 26 – Voskhod Group – Medical Group 1 (USSR)
:Vladimir Benderov,
Georgy Katys,
Vasili Lazarev
Vasily Grigoryevich Lazarev (russian: Васи́лий Григо́рьевич Ла́зарев; 23 February 1928 31 December 1990) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 12 spaceflight as well as the abortive Soyuz 18a launch on 5 April 1 ...
, Boris Polyakov, Aleksei Sorokin,
Boris Yegorov
Boris Borisovich Yegorov (russian: Борис Борисович Егоров; 26 November 1937 – 12 September 1994) was a Soviet physician-cosmonaut who became the first physician to make a space flight.
Yegorov came from a medical background ...
June 11 – Civilian Specialist Group 1 (USSR)
:
Konstantin Feoktistov
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (russian: Константин Петрович Феоктистов; 7 February 1926 – 21 November 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut and an eminent space engineer. As a cosmonaut Feoktistov flew on Voskhod 1, the f ...
(1926 – 2009)
1965
June 1 – Journalist Group 1 (USSR)
:In 1965, three civilian journalists,
Yaroslav Golovanov, Yuri Letunov, Mikhail Rebrov, were selected for cosmonaut training in preparation for flight on a
Voskhod mission. When the Voskhod program was canceled, Golovanov and Letunov were dismissed. Rebrov, on the other hand, stayed with the space program as a journalist until 1974.
June 1 – Medical Group 2 (USSR)
:Three physicians were selected for the long-duration
Voskhod flights: Yevgeni Illyin, Aleksandr Kiselyov,
Yuri Senkevich
Yuri Aleksandrovich Senkevich (russian: Юрий Александрович Сенкевич) (March 4, 1937 in Choibalsan, Mongolia – September 25, 2003 in Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet doctor, and scientist. He is a Candidate of Sciences ...
. All were subsequently canceled to make way for the Soviet Moon program and dismissed at the beginning of the following year.
June 28 –
NASA Group 4 – ''The Scientists'' (USA)
:
Owen Garriott
Owen Kay Garriott (November 22, 1930 – April 15, 2019) was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Spac ...
,
Edward Gibson
Edward George Gibson (born November 8, 1936) is a former NASA astronaut, pilot, engineer, and physicist.
Before becoming an astronaut, Gibson graduated from the University of Rochester and the California Institute of Technology. He became a re ...
,
Duane Graveline
Duane Edgar "Doc" Graveline (March 2, 1931 – September 5, 2016) was an American physician and NASA astronaut. He was one of the six scientists selected in 1965, in NASA's fourth group of astronauts, for the Apollo program. He was best known f ...
,
Joseph Kerwin,
Curt Michel
Frank Curtis "Curt" Michel (June 5, 1934 – February 26, 2015) was an American astrophysicist; a professor of astrophysics at Rice University in Houston, Texas; a United States Air Force pilot; and a NASA astronaut.
Personal data
Michel wa ...
,
Harrison Schmitt
Harrison Hagan Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent living person—and only person without a background in military aviation ...
:Graveline and Michel left NASA without flying in space. Schmitt walked on the Moon with
Apollo 17
Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on ...
. Garriott, Gibson and Kerwin all flew to Skylab. Garriott also flew on
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
flight
STS-9, becoming the first
Amateur radio
Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...
operator (callsign W5LFL) to operate from orbit.
October 28 – Air Force Group 3 (USSR)
:Boris Belousov, Vladimir Degtyarov, Anatoli Fyodorov,
Yuri Glazkov
Yury Nikolayevich Glazkov (russian: Ю́рий Никола́евич Глазко́в; 2 October 1939 – 9 December 2008) was a Soviet Air Force officer and a cosmonaut. Glazkov held the rank of major general in the Russian Air Force.
Biograph ...
, Vitali Grishchenko, Veygeni Khludeyev,
Leonid Kizim
Leonid Denisovich Kizim (russian: Леонид Денисович Кизим; 5 August 1941 – 14 June 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Biography
Kizim was born in Krasnyi Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Soviet Union (now Lyman, Ukraine). He graduated ...
,
Pyotr Klimuk
Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk ( be, Пётр Ільіч Кліму́к; russian: Пётр Ильич Климу́к; born 10 July 1942) is a former Soviet cosmonaut and the first Belarusian to perform space travel. Klimuk made three flights into space. ...
, Gennadi Kolesnikov, Aleksandr Kramarenko, Mikhail Lisun, Aleksandr Petrushenko, Vladimir Preobrazhensky,
Valery Rozhdestvensky
Valery Ilyich Rozhdestvensky (Russian: Валерий Ильич Рождественский; 13 February 1939 – 31 August 2011) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Rozhdestvensky was born in Leningrad and graduated from the Higher Military Engineering ...
,
Gennadi Sarafanov
Gennady Vasiliyevich Sarafanov (; 1 January 1942 – 29 September 2005) was a Soviet Union, Soviet astronaut, cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This mission was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but failed ...
, Ansar Sharafutdinov, Vasili Shcheglov, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Eduard Stepanov, Valeri Voloshin, Oleg Yakovlev,
Vyacheslav Zudov
Vyacheslav Dmitriyevich Zudov (russian: Вячесла́в Дми́триевич Зу́дов, born 8 January 1942) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut.
He was selected as a cosmonaut on 23 October 1965, flew as Commander on Soyuz 23 on 14–16 Octo ...
:This cosmonaut group was selected for participation in five separate
Soyuz programme
The Soyuz programme ( , ; russian: link=no, Союз , meaning "Union") is a human spaceflight programme initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a So ...
s that the USSR was running. These included military programs—with and without the
Almaz
The Almaz (russian: Алмаз, lit=Diamond) program was a highly secret Soviet military space station program, begun in the early 1960s.
Three crewed military reconnaissance stations were launched between 1973 and 1976: Salyut 2, Salyut 3 a ...
/
Salyut
The ''Salyut'' programme (russian: Салют, , meaning "salute" or "fireworks") was the first space station programme, undertaken by the Soviet Union. It involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed ...
space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...
s—and two lunar programs, only one of which aimed at an actual lunar landing. In the end, only the orbital program and the space station program went ahead. Few of the cosmonauts from this group ever were given the chance to fly.
November – USAF MOL Group 1 (USA)
:
Michael J. Adams,
Albert H. Crews Jr.,
John L. Finley,
Richard E. Lawyer,
Lachlan Macleay,
Francis G. Neubeck,
James M. Taylor,
Richard H. Truly
Richard Harrison Truly (born November 12, 1937) is a retired Vice admiral (United States), vice admiral in the United States Navy, a former fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut, and was the eighth NASA Administrator, administrator of the NASA, Natio ...
.
:This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's
Manned Orbiting Laboratory
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was part of the United States Air Force (USAF) human spaceflight program in the 1960s. The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations as reconnaissance satellites, and was a s ...
(MOL) program. Of this group, only Truly transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program and later flew on the Space Shuttle. In 1989, Truly became the first astronaut to be
NASA Administrator
The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the highest-ranking official of NASA, the national space agency of the United States. The administrator is NASA's chief decision maker, responsible for providing clarity to ...
.
1966
April 4 –
NASA Group 5 (USA)
:
Vance Brand
Vance DeVoe Brand (born May 9, 1931) is an American naval officer, aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint spaceflight in 1975, and as commander of thr ...
,
John S. Bull
John Sumter Bull (September 25, 1934 – August 11, 2008), was an American United States Navy, naval officer and United States naval aviator, aviator, fighter pilot, test pilot, Mechanical engineering, mechanical and aeronautical engineer, and N ...
,
Gerald Carr,
Charles Duke
Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at ...
,
Joseph Engle
Joe Henry Engle (born August 26, 1932) is an American Aviator, pilot, aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight. He also flew ...
,
Ronald Evans,
Edward Givens
Major Edward Galen Givens Jr., USAF (January 5, 1930 – June 6, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. Selected by NASA in 1966 as a member of the fifth astronaut group, he died in an automobile accident be ...
,
Fred Haise
Fred Wallace Haise Jr. ( ; born November 14, 1933) is an American former NASA astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, and a test pilot. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having f ...
,
James Irwin
James Benson Irwin (March 17, 1930 – August 8, 1991) was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. He served as Apollo Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landing. ...
,
Don Lind
Don Leslie Lind (May 18, 1930 – August 30, 2022) was an American scientist, naval officer, aviator, and NASA astronaut. He graduated from the University of Utah with an undergraduate degree in physics in 1953. Following his military service o ...
,
Jack Lousma
Jack Robert Lousma (born February 29, 1936) is an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, retired United States Marine Corps, United States Marine Corps officer, former United States naval aviator, naval aviator, NASA astronaut, and politici ...
,
Ken Mattingly
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II (born March 17, 1936) is an American former aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy and astronaut who flew on the Apollo 16, STS-4 and STS-51-C missions.
Mattingly had ...
,
Bruce McCandless II
Bruce McCandless II (born Byron Willis McCandless; June 8, 1937 – December 21, 2017) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, electrical engineer, and NASA astronaut. In 1984, during the first of his two Space Shuttle missions, h ...
,
Edgar Mitchell,
William Pogue
William Reid Pogue (January 23, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American astronaut and pilot who served in the United States Air Force (USAF) as a fighter pilot and test pilot, and reached the rank of colonel. He was also a teacher, public spea ...
,
Stuart Roosa
Stuart Allen Roosa (August 16, 1933 – December 12, 1994) was an American aeronautical engineer, smokejumper, United States Air Force Aviator, pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who was the Apollo Command/Service Module, Command Module Pilo ...
,
Jack Swigert
John Leonard Swigert Jr. (August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. In April 1970, as command module pilot of Apollo ...
,
Paul Weitz,
Alfred Worden
Alfred Merrill Worden (February 7, 1932 – March 18, 2020) was an American test pilot, engineer and NASA astronaut who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. One of only 24 people to have flown to the ...
.
:Veteran astronaut John Young christened this group the "Original Nineteen," in parody of the
original seven Mercury astronauts. Roughly half of them flew in the Apollo program, while others flew during Skylab and the Space Shuttle, with Brand also flying on the American half of the
Apollo–Soyuz Test Project
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked ...
in 1975. Engle was the only NASA astronaut to have earned his astronaut wings before his selection.
:Two of this group never flew into space: Givens was killed in a car accident in 1967, and Bull resigned from the Astronaut Corps in 1968 after discovering he had
pulmonary disease
Respiratory diseases, or lung diseases, are pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange difficult in air-breathing animals. They include conditions of the respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, bron ...
. Engle, Lind, and McCandless were the only ones from this group who never flew an Apollo spacecraft; Brand, Haise, Lousma, Mattingly, and Weitz all flew both an Apollo and a Shuttle (though Haise only flew the Approach and Landing Tests in the Shuttle program, not into space).
May 23 – Civilian Specialist Group 2 (USSR)
:
Sergei Anokhin,
Vladimir Bugrov,
Gennadi Dolgopolov,
Georgi Grechko
Georgy Mikhaylovich Grechko (russian: Георгий Михайлович Гречко; 25 May 1931 – 8 April 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He flew to space on three missions, each bound for rendezvous with a different Salyut space station. ,
Valeri Kubasov
Valery Nikolaevich Kubasov (russian: Вале́рий Никола́евич Куба́сов; 7 January 1935 – 19 February 2014) was a Soviet/Russian cosmonaut who flew on two missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 6 and S ...
,
Oleg Makarov,
Vladislav Volkov
Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov (russian: Владисла́в Никола́евич Во́лков; 23 November 193529 June 1971) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 11 missions. The second mission terminated fatally. ,
Aleksei Yeliseyev
Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev (russian: Алексей Станиславович Елисеев; born 13 July 1934) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 5 , Soyuz 8, and S ...
June 30 – USAF MOL Group 2 (USA)
:
Karol Bobko
Karol Joseph "Bo" Bobko (born December 23, 1937), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and a former USAF and NASA astronaut. Bobko was the first graduate of the US Air Force Academy t ...
,
Robert Crippen
Robert Laurel Crippen (born September 11, 1937) is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as Pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttl ...
,
Gordon Fullerton
Charles Gordon Fullerton (October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013) was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California. ,
Henry Hartsfield
Henry Warren Hartsfield Jr. (21 November 1933 – 17 July 2014) was a United States Air Force Colonel and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2006.
Personal data ...
,
Robert Overmyer.
:This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's MOL program. All transferred to NASA after the MOL program was canceled and all five flew on the Space Shuttle as pilot astronauts.
September – Military Cosmonaut Group (USSR)
:
Pavel Popovich
Pavel Romanovich Popovich (russian: Па́вел Рома́нович Попо́вич, uk, Павло Романович Попович, Pavlo Romanovych Popovych) (5 October 1930 – 29 September 2009) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Popovich was the ...
, Alexei Gubarev,
Yuri Artyukhin, Vladimir Gulyaev,
Boris Belousov, and Gennadiy Kolesnikov.
:Cosmonaut training for the
Soyuz 7K-VI Zvezda
The Soviet Union planned several military Soyuz spacecraft models. These versions were named ''Soyuz P'', ''Soyuz PPK'', ''Soyuz R'', ''Soyuz 7K-VI'', and ''Soyuz OIS (Orbital Research Station)''. However, none ever flew in space.
Soyuz P, R ...
program, a radically modified
Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...
. In December 1967, the project was closed.
1966–67 – Military Cosmonaut Group (USSR)
:Cosmonauts training for aerospace system Project "Spiral," 1969, the 4th Division of the 1st Cosmonaut Training Center Management:
:
German Titov
Gherman Stepanovich Titov (russian: Герман Степанович Титов; 11 September 1935 – 20 September 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Yu ...
(1966–70), Anatoly Kuklin (1966–67),
Vasily Lazarev
Vasily Grigoryevich Lazarev (russian: Васи́лий Григо́рьевич Ла́зарев; 23 February 1928 31 December 1990) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 12 spaceflight as well as the abortive Soyuz 18a launch on 5 April 1 ...
(1966–67),
Anatoly Filipchenko
Major General Anatoly Vasilyevich Filipchenko (26 February 1928 – 7 August 2022) was a Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent. He flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 16 missions.
He was born in Davydovka, Voronezh Governorate, RSFSR. After leaving ...
(1966–67),
Leonid Kizim
Leonid Denisovich Kizim (russian: Леонид Денисович Кизим; 5 August 1941 – 14 June 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Biography
Kizim was born in Krasnyi Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, Soviet Union (now Lyman, Ukraine). He graduated ...
(1969–73), Vladimir Kozelskiy (August 1969 – October 1971)
Vladimir Lyakhov
Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (russian: Влади́мир Афана́сьевич Ля́хов; 20 July 1941 – 19 April 2018) was a Ukrainian Soviet cosmonaut.
He was selected as cosmonaut on 5 May 1967, and retired on 7 September 1994. Lya ...
(1969–73),
Yury Malyshev (1969–73), Alexander Petrushenko (1970–73),
Anatoly Berezovoy
Anatoly Nikolayevich Berezovoy (russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Березово́й; 11 April 1942 – 20 September 2014) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Biography
Berezovoy was born in Enem, Adyghe Autonomous Oblast, Russian SFSR ...
(1972–73), Anatoly Dedkov (1972–73),
Vladimir Dzhanibekov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov (russian: Владимир Александрович Джанибеков, born 13 May 1942) is a former cosmonaut who made five flights.
Biography
Dzhanibekov was born Vladimir Aleksandrovich Krysin (russia ...
(July–December 1972),
Yuri Romanenko
Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (russian: Ю́рий Ви́кторович Романе́нко; born 1 August 1944) is a former Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (March 16, 1978 and September 26, 1980). Over his career, Yuri Romanenk ...
(1972), and Lev Vorobyov (1973). In 1973, the department was disbanded in connection with the termination of the project.
1967
January 31 – Civilian Specialist Group 2 Supplemental (USSR)
:
Nikolai Rukavishnikov
Nikolai Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov (; 18 September 1932 – 19 October 2002) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 10, Soyuz 16, and Soyuz 33. Two of these missions, Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 33 were intended ...
and
Vitali Sevastyanov
Vitaly Ivanovich Sevastyanov (russian: Вита́лий Ива́нович Севастья́нов; 8 July 1935 – 5 April 2010) was a Soviet cosmonaut and an engineer who flew on the Soyuz 9 and Soyuz 18 missions.
He trained as an engin ...
February – Soviet crewed lunar programs cosmonauts in two training groups (USSR)
:First group: commanded by
Vladimir Komarov
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov ( rus, Влади́мир Миха́йлович Комаро́в, p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ kəmɐˈrof; 16 March 1927 – 24 April 1967) was a Soviet test pilot, aerospace engineer, and cosmonaut. ...
(Gagarin, Nikolayev, Bykovskiy, Khrunov; Engineer - Cosmonauts: Gorbatko, Grechko, Sevastyanov, Kubasov, Volkov).
:Second group: commanded by
Alexei Leonov
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during th ...
(Popovich, Belyayev, Volynov, Klimuk; Engineer - Cosmonauts: Makarov, Voronov, Rukavishnikov, Artyukhin).
May 7 – Air Force Group 4 (USSR)
:Vladimir Alekseyev, Vladimir Beloborodov, Mikhail Burdayev, Sergei Gaidukov, Vladimir Isakov,
Vladimir Kovalyonok
Vladimir Vasiliyevich Kovalyonok ( be, Уладзі́мір Васі́льевіч Кавалёнак; russian: Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ковалёнок; born 3 March 1942 in Beloye, Minsk Oblast, Belorussian SSR) is a ret ...
, Vladimir Kozelsky,
Vladimir Lyakhov
Vladimir Afanasyevich Lyakhov (russian: Влади́мир Афана́сьевич Ля́хов; 20 July 1941 – 19 April 2018) was a Ukrainian Soviet cosmonaut.
He was selected as cosmonaut on 5 May 1967, and retired on 7 September 1994. Lya ...
,
Yuri Malyshev, Viktor Pisarev, Nikolai Porvatkin, Mikhail Sologub
May 22 – Academy of Sciences Group (USSR)
:Mars Fathulin, Rudolf Gulyayev, Ordinard Kolomitsev, Vsevolod Yegorov, Valentin Yershov
June – USAF MOL Group 3 (USA)
:
James Abrahamson
James Alan Abrahamson (born May 19, 1933) is a retired U.S. Air Force general who served as a designated astronaut, associate director of NASA and former director of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative from 1984 until 1989. H ...
,
Robert Herres,
Robert H. Lawrence Jr, and
Donald Peterson.
:This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's MOL program. Lawrence was the first
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
to be chosen as an astronaut, but was killed in a jet accident before the MOL program was canceled in 1969. Had Lawrence not died, he would have been, if accepted by NASA, the first African-American astronaut candidate, predating
Guion Bluford
Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut in which capacity he became the second person of African descent to ...
,
Ronald McNair
Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission spec ...
and
Frederick Gregory by nine years. Peterson transferred to NASA in 1969 after the MOL cancellation and would fly on the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
. Herres would later become the first
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (VJCS) is, by U.S. law, the second highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, - Vice Chairman ranking just below the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The vice chairman ...
under the
Goldwater–Nichols Act
The Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of October 4, 1986 , (signed by President Ronald Reagan), made the most sweeping changes to the United States Department of Defense since the department was established in the ...
in 1987.
October 4 –
NASA Group 6 – ''XS-11'' ''(The Excess Eleven)'' (USA)
:
Joseph Allen,
Philip Chapman
Philip Kenyon Chapman (5 March 1935 – 5 April 2021) was the first Australian-born American astronaut, serving for about five years in NASA Astronaut Group 6 (1967).
Education
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Chapman's family moved to Sydney whi ...
,
Anthony W. England
Anthony Wayne England (born May 15, 1942), better known as Tony England, is an American, former NASA astronaut. Selected in 1967, England was among a group of astronauts who served as backups during the Apollo and Skylab programs. Like most ot ...
,
Karl Henize
Karl Gordon Henize (;[JPL-80 "NASA Creates Portrait of Life and ...](_blank)
,
Donald Holmquest
Donald Lee Holmquest (born April 7, 1939) is an American lawyer, physician, electrical engineer, and former NASA astronaut. He was the CEO of the California Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO).
Biography Early life and educatio ...
,
William B. Lenoir
William Benjamin "Bill" Lenoir (March 14, 1939 – August 26, 2010) was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut.
Early life and education
William Benjamin Lenoir was born on March 14, 1939, in Miami, Florida as a son of Samuel Sta ...
,
Anthony Llewellyn
John Anthony Llewellyn (22 April 1933 – 2 July 2013), was a Welsh-born American scientist and a former NASA astronaut candidate.
Biography
Llewellyn was born 22 April 1933, in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, and graduated from Cardiff High Sc ...
,
Story Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave (born August 19, 1935) is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996, he became only the second as ...
,
Brian O'Leary
Brian Todd O'Leary (January 27, 1940 – July 28, 2011) was an American scientist, author, and NASA astronaut. He was part of NASA Astronaut Group 6, a group of scientist-astronauts chosen with the intention of training for the Apollo App ...
,
Robert Parker,
William Thornton
William Thornton (May 20, 1759 – March 28, 1828) was a British-American physician, inventor, painter and architect who designed the United States Capitol. He also served as the first Architect of the Capitol and first Superintendent of the Uni ...
.
:This second group of scientist-astronauts were assigned as support crew members for the last three Apollo missions or as backup crew members for Skylab.
Chapman, Holmquest, Llewellyn, and O'Leary resigned from NASA before the end of the Apollo program, and the rest of the group members eventually flew as
Mission Specialists during the Space Shuttle program. With his flight on STS-80 at the age of 61, Musgrave held the title of "oldest astronaut" prior to John Glenn's second flight. England resigned from NASA in 1972 but rejoined the astronaut corps in 1979.
1968
May 27 – Civilian Specialist Group 3 (USSR)
:Vladimir Fartushny,
Viktor Patsayev
Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev (russian: Ви́ктор Ива́нович Паца́ев; 19 June 193329 June 1971) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 11 mission and was part of the third space crew to die during a space flight. On boar ...
, Valeri Yazdovsky
1969
August 14 –
NASA Group 7 (USA)
:
Karol Bobko
Karol Joseph "Bo" Bobko (born December 23, 1937), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and a former USAF and NASA astronaut. Bobko was the first graduate of the US Air Force Academy t ...
,
Robert Crippen
Robert Laurel Crippen (born September 11, 1937) is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as Pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttl ...
,
Gordon Fullerton
Charles Gordon Fullerton (October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013) was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California. ,
Henry Hartsfield
Henry Warren Hartsfield Jr. (21 November 1933 – 17 July 2014) was a United States Air Force Colonel and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space. He was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2006.
Personal data ...
,
Robert Overmyer,
Donald H. Peterson,
Richard Truly
Richard Harrison Truly (born November 12, 1937) is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy, a former fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut, and was the eighth administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) fro ...
.
:This group is all USAF MOL astronauts who transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program in 1969. All flew on early Space Shuttle flights. Truly, in 1989, would become the first astronaut to become NASA Administrator, holding the position until 1992.
September 10 – Civilian Engineer Group (USSR)
:Anatoli Demyanenko, Valeri Makrushin, and Dmitri Yuyukov.
1970
April 27 – Air Force Group 5 (USSR)
:
Anatoli Berezovoi, Aleksandr Dedkov,
Vladimir Dzhanibekov
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov (russian: Владимир Александрович Джанибеков, born 13 May 1942) is a former cosmonaut who made five flights.
Biography
Dzhanibekov was born Vladimir Aleksandrovich Krysin (russia ...
, Nikolai Fefelov, Valeri Illarianov, Yuri Isaulov, Vladimir Kozlov,
Leonid Popov,
Yuri Romanenko
Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (russian: Ю́рий Ви́кторович Романе́нко; born 1 August 1944) is a former Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (March 16, 1978 and September 26, 1980). Over his career, Yuri Romanenk ...
1971
February 25 – 1971 Scientific Group (USSR)
:Gurgen Ivanyan
May –
Shuguang Group 1970 (China)
:Chai Hongliang, Dong Xiaohai, Du Jincheng, Fang Guojun, Hu Zhanzi, Li Shichang, Liu Chongfu, Liu Zhongyi, Lu Xiangxiao, Ma Zizhong, Meng Senlin, Shao Zhijian, Wang Fuhe, Wang Fuquan, Wang Quanbo, Wang Rongsen, Wang Zhiyue, Yu Guilin, Zhang Ruxiang
1972
March 22 – Civilian Specialist Group 4 (USSR)
:
Boris Andreyev,
Valentin Lebedev
Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev (russian: Валентин Витальевич Лебедев; born April 14, 1942 in Moscow) is a Soviet cosmonaut who made two flights into space. His stay aboard the Space Station Salyut 7 with Anatoly Berez ...
, Yuri Ponomaryov
March 22 – Medical Group 3 – USSR
:Georgi Machinski,
Valeri Polyakov
Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov (russian: Валерий Владимирович Поляков, born Valeri Ivanovich Korshunov, russian: Валерий Иванович Коршунов, 27 April 1942 – 7 September 2022) was a Soviet and Rus ...
, Lev Smirenny
1973
March 27 – Civilian Specialist Group 5 (USSR)
:
Vladimir Aksyonov
Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov ( Russian: Влади́мир Ви́кторович Аксёнов) is a former Soviet cosmonaut.
Aksyonov was born in Giblitsy in the Kasimovsky District, Ryazan Oblast, Russian SFSR, on February 1, 1935.
Edu ...
, Vladimir Gevorkyan,
Aleksandr Ivanchenkov
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Ivanchenkov (russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Иванче́нков; born 28 September 1940 ) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew as Flight Engineer on Soyuz 29 and Soyuz T-6, he spent 147 days, 12 hou ...
, Valeri Romanov,
Valery Ryumin
Valery Victorovich Ryumin (russian: Валерий Викторович Рюмин; 16 August 1939 – 6 June 2022) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
Biography
In 1958, he graduated from the Kaliningrad Mechanical Engineering Technical College with the ...
,
Gennady Strekalov
Gennady Mikhailovich Strekalov (russian: Генна́дий Миха́йлович Стрека́лов; 26 October 1940 – 25 December 2004) was an engineer, cosmonaut, and administrator at Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia. He flew into spa ...
1974
January 1 – Physician Group (USSR)
:Zyyadin Abuzyarov
1976
August 23 – Air Force Group 6 –
Space shuttle Buran crew (USSR)
:
Leonid Ivanov,
Leonid Kadenyuk, Nikolai Moskalenko, Sergei Protchenko, Yevgeni Saley,
Anatoly Solovyev,
Vladimir Titov
Vladimir Georgiyevich Titov (russian: Владимир Георгиевич Титов; born 1 January 1947 in Sretensk, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia) is a retired Russian Air Force Colonel and former cosmonaut. He has participated in four spacefli ...
,
Vladimir Vasyutin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Vasyutin (Russian: Влaдимиp Bлaдимиpoвич Васютин; 8 March 1952 19 July 2002) was a Soviet cosmonaut.
He was selected as a cosmonaut on 1 December 1978 (TsPK-6). He retired on 25 February 1986.
Vasyuti ...
,
Alexander Volkov
Protchenko was removed from the squad for health reasons, Ivanov was killed in the crash of a
MiG-27
The Mikoyan MiG-27 (russian: Микоян МиГ-27; NATO reporting name: Flogger-D/J) is a variable-sweep ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union and later licence-produced in India ...
during test pilot training and Kadenyuk was removed from the squad over marital issues (but accepted back into the Cosmonaut Detachment in 1988). Vasyutin concealed a medical condition from doctors that resulted in his falling ill during the
Soyuz T-14
Soyuz T-14 (russian: Союз Т-14, ''Union T-14'') was the ninth expedition to Salyut 7. The mission relieved Soyuz T-13, whose crew had performed unprecedented repairs aboard the previously-dead station.
Crew
Backup crew
Mission parame ...
/ Salyut 7 EO-4 flight causing the premature termination of the mission 4 months early. This resulted in more stringent cosmonaut medical checks which Moskalenko and Saley failed.
November 25 – 1976 Intercosmos Group (USSR)
:
Mirosław Hermaszewski
Mirosław Hermaszewski (; 15 September 1941 – 12 December 2022) was a Polish cosmonaut, fighter plane pilot, and Polish Air Force officer. He became the first, and at the time of his death in December 2022, the only, Polish national in spac ...
(Poland),
Zenon Jankowski (Poland),
Sigmund Jähn
Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn (; 13 February 1937 – 21 September 2019) was a German cosmonaut and pilot who in 1978 became the first German to fly into space as part of the Soviet Union's Interkosmos programme.
Early life
Jähn was born on 13 Fe ...
(East Germany),
Eberhard Köllner
Eberhard Köllner (born 29 September 1939 in Stassfurt, Germany) was selected for Soyuz 31 as the backup for Sigmund Jähn.
He later became the Director of the Airforce Academy of the German Democratic Republic in the rank of an ''Oberst'' (" ...
(East Germany),
Oldřich Pelčák
Oldřich Pelčák (born November 2, 1943, in Zlín, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech cosmonaut and engineer. He graduated from Gagarin Air Force Military Academy. In 1976, Pelčák was selected as backup of Vladimír Remek for the Soyuz 28 mission. T ...
(Czechoslovakia),
Vladimír Remek
Vladimír Remek (born 26 September 1948) is a Czech, formerly Czechoslovak, politician and diplomat, as well as a former cosmonaut and military pilot. He flew aboard Soyuz 28 from 2 to 10 March 1978, becoming the first and only Czechoslovak in ...
(Czechoslovakia)
1977
July 12 – The first group of test pilots for Buran – Gromov Flight Research Institute group (USSR)
:
Igor Volk
Igor Petrovich Volk (russian: Игорь Петрович Волк, ; 12 April 1937 – 3 January 2017) was a Soviet test pilot and cosmonaut in the Buran programme. Military and test pilot
Volk became a pilot in the Soviet Air Forces in ...
,
Oleg Grigoriyevich Kononenko,
Anatoly Levchenko, Nikolai Sadovnikov,
Rimantas Stankevicius, and Alexander Schukin.
1978
January 16 –
NASA Group 8 – ''TFNG Thirty-Five New Guys'' (USA)
:Pilots:
Daniel Brandenstein
Daniel Charles Brandenstein (born January 17, 1943) is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of United Space Alliance. He is a former Naval Aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut, who flew four Space Shuttle missions. He also s ...
,
Michael Coats
Michael Lloyd Coats (born January 16, 1946) is a former NASA astronaut (three spaceflights), raised in Riverside, California. From December 2005 to December 2012, he served as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Early life a ...
,
Richard Covey,
John Creighton,
Robert Gibson,
Frederick D. Gregory
Frederick Drew Gregory (born January 7, 1941) is a former United States Air Force pilot, military engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut as well as former NASA Deputy Administrator. He also served briefly as NASA Acting Administrator in early ...
,
Frederick Hauck
Frederick Hamilton "Rick" Hauck (pronounced "Howk"; born April 11, 1941) is a retired captain in the United States Navy, a former fighter pilot and NASA astronaut. He piloted Space Shuttle mission STS-7 and commanded STS-51-A and STS-26.
Per ...
,
Jon McBride
Jon Andrew McBride (born August 14, 1943), is a retired NASA astronaut and American naval officer.
Over the course of his career with the United States Navy, McBride served as an aviator, a fighter pilot, a test pilot, and an aeronautical engi ...
,
Francis "Dick" Scobee,
Brewster Shaw
Brewster Hopkinson Shaw Jr. (born May 16, 1945) is a retired NASA astronaut, U.S. Air Force Colonel (United States), colonel, and former executive at Boeing. Shaw was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 6, 2006.
Shaw is a vetera ...
,
Loren Shriver
Loren James Shriver (born September 23, 1944) is a former NASA astronaut, aviator, and a retired US Air Force Colonel.
Career
Shriver graduated from Paton High School in 1962. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineerin ...
,
David Walker,
Donald Williams
:Mission specialists:
Guion Bluford
Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut in which capacity he became the second person of African descent to ...
,
James Buchli
James Frederick Buchli (born June 20, 1945, in New Rockford, North Dakota) is a retired United States Marine aviator and former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
Early life and education
Buchli graduated from Fargo Central ...
,
John Fabian,
Anna Fisher,
Dale Gardner
Dale Allan Gardner (November 8, 1948 – February 19, 2014) was a NASA astronaut, and naval flight officer who flew two Space Shuttle missions during the mid 1980s.
Personal information
Born on November 8, 1948, in Fairmont, Minnesota, Gardn ...
,
S. David Griggs,
Terry Hart
Terry Jonathan "T.J." Hart (born October 27, 1946) is an American mechanical and electrical engineer, a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel and pilot, and former NASA astronaut.
Education
Hart was born on October 27, 1946, in Pi ...
,
Steven Hawley
Steven Alan Hawley (born December 12, 1951) is a former NASA astronaut who flew on five U.S. Space Shuttle flights. He is professor of physics and astronomy and director of engineering physics at the University of Kansas.
Early life
Hawley w ...
,
Jeffrey Hoffman
Jeffrey Alan Hoffman (born November 2, 1944) is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.
Hoffman made five flights as a Space Shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair t ...
,
Shannon Lucid
Shannon Wells Lucid (born January 14, 1943) is an American biochemist and retired NASA astronaut. At one time, she held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American and by a woman. She has flown in space five times including ...
,
Ronald McNair
Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission spec ...
,
Richard Mullane
Richard Michael Mullane (born September 10, 1945; Col, USAF, Ret.) is an engineer and Weapon Systems Officer, a retired USAF officer, and a former NASA astronaut. During his career, he flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-D, STS-27, and S ...
,
Steven Nagel
Steven Ray Nagel (October 27, 1946 – August 21, 2014), (Col, USAF), was an American astronaut, aeronautical and mechanical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. In total, he logged 723 hours in space. After NASA, he worked ...
,
George Nelson,
Ellison Onizuka,
Judith Resnik
Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster. She was the fourth woman, ...
,
Sally Ride
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts V ...
,
Rhea Seddon
Margaret Rhea Seddon (born November 8, 1947) is an American surgeon and retired NASA astronaut. After being selected as part of the first group of astronauts to include women in 1978, she flew on three Space Shuttle flights: as mission spe ...
,
Robert Stewart,
Kathryn D. Sullivan,
Norman Thagard
Norman Earl Thagard, M.D. (born July 3, 1943; Capt, USMC, Ret.), is an American scientist and former U.S. Marine Corps officer and naval aviator and NASA astronaut. He is the first American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle, and ca ...
,
James van Hoften
:Due to the long delay between the last
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
mission and the
first flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981, few astronauts from the older groups stayed with
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
—though some did, including
John Young John Young may refer to:
Academics
* John Young (professor of Greek) (died 1820), Scottish professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow
* John C. Young (college president) (1803–1857), American educator, pastor, and president of Centre Col ...
. Thus, in 1978, a new group of 35 astronauts was selected after 9 years without new astronauts, including the first American female astronauts, with one of them,
Judith Resnik
Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, pilot and NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster. She was the fourth woman, ...
, also being the first Jewish American astronaut, as well as the first African-American astronauts to fly,
Guion Bluford
Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut in which capacity he became the second person of African descent to ...
and
Frederick D. Gregory
Frederick Drew Gregory (born January 7, 1941) is a former United States Air Force pilot, military engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut as well as former NASA Deputy Administrator. He also served briefly as NASA Acting Administrator in early ...
(the first black astronaut was
Robert Henry Lawrence Jr
Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. (October 2, 1935 – December 8, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut. ), and the first Asian-American,
Ellison Onizuka.
Bob Stewart was the first
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
astronaut to be selected (almost 19 years after the original
Mercury Seven
The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1. Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959; these seve ...
). Since then, a new group has been selected roughly every two years.
:Two different astronaut groups were formed: pilots and mission specialists. Additionally, the
Shuttle Program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. I ...
has payload specialists who are selected for a single mission and are not part of the astronaut corps—mostly scientists, with a few politicians, and many international astronauts.
:Of the first of the post-Apollo group, Sally Ride would become the first American woman in space (
STS-7
STS-7 was NASA's seventh Space Shuttle mission, and the second mission for the Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. During the mission, ''Challenger'' deployed several satellites into orbit. The shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 18, ...
). Later, she would fly with Kathryn Sullivan on a Shuttle flight in which Sullivan would become the first American woman to perform an EVA. Dr. Thagard, who flew with Ride on STS-7, would later become the first American to be launched on a Russian rocket (
Soyuz TM-21
Soyuz TM-21 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to ''Mir''. The mission launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, atop a Soyuz-U2 carrier rocket, at 06:11:34 UTC on March 14, 1995. The flight marked the first time thirteen humans were flying in space simu ...
or "Mir-18") to the
Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
space station, while Shannon Lucid would serve on Mir for slightly over six months, breaking all American space duration records (both the
Skylab 4
Skylab 4 (also SL-4 and SLM-3) was the third crewed Skylab mission and placed the third and final human spaceflight, crew aboard the first American space station.
The mission began on November 16, 1973, with the launch of Gerald P. Carr, Edward ...
record and Thagard's) from 1996 to 1997 until
Sunita Williams
Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was ...
, who was selected 20 years later, broke Lucid's record.
:Of this group, Scobee, Resnik, Onizuka, and McNair would perish in the
Challenger Disaster
On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). It was ...
. Of the astronauts chosen, Anna Fisher remained on active duty the longest, retiring in 2017 (although her tenure included an extended leave of absence from 1989 to 1996), while Robert Gibson and Rhea Seddon became the first active-duty astronauts to marry (both are now retired). Shannon Lucid's tenure was unbroken from 1978 until she announced her retirement in 2012. In later years she served as a space shuttle
CAPCOM
is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...
, up to the final day of the final shuttle mission. After the ''Challenger'' disaster, Sally Ride would serve on both the
Rogers Commission
The Rogers Commission Report was written by a Presidential Commission charged with investigating the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster during its 10th mission, STS-51-L. The report, released and submitted to President Ronald Reagan on Jun ...
and the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board
The ''Columbia'' Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) was an internal commission convened by NASA to investigate the destruction of the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' during STS-107 upon atmospheric re-entry on February 1, 2003. The panel determin ...
.
March 1 – 1978 Intercosmos Group (USSR)
:
Aleksandr P. Aleksandrov (Bulgaria),
Dumitru Dediu (Romania), Jose Lopez Falcon (Cuba),
Bertalan Farkas
Bertalan Farkas (born August 2, 1949) is the first Hungarian Astronaut#Cosmonaut, cosmonaut, space exploration, space explorer and fighter pilot. Hungary became Timeline of space travel by nationality, the seventh nation to be represented in spac ...
(Hungary),
Maidarjavyn Ganzorig (Mongolia),
Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa
Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa ( mn, Жүгдэрдэмидийн Гүррагчаа; russian: Жугдэрдэмидийн Гуррагча, , born 5 December 1947) is a Mongolian cosmonaut and military leader. He was the first Mongolian and seco ...
(Mongolia),
Georgi Ivanov (Bulgaria),
Béla Magyari
Béla Magyari (8 August 1949 – 23 April 2018Tóth Balázs"Elhunyt Magyari Béla kiképzett űrhajós" ''Index'', 23 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018. ) was a colonel in the Hungarian Air Force
The Hungarian Air Force ( hu, Magyar Légier ...
(Hungary),
Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (Cuba),
Dumitru Prunariu
Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu (; born 27 September 1952) is a Romanian cosmonaut. He flew in space aboard Soyuz 40 spacecraft and Salyut 6 space laboratory. He teamed with the Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Popov. The backup crew was made of Romanian candidat ...
(Romania)
May 1 –
Spacelab
Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...
Payload Specialists Group 1 (ESA)
:
Ulf Merbold
Ulf Dietrich Merbold (born June 20, 1941) is a German physicist and astronaut who flew to space three times, becoming the first West German citizen in space and the first non-American to fly on a NASA spacecraft. Merbold flew on two Space Shu ...
(West Germany),
Claude Nicollier
Claude Nicollier (born 2 September 1944 in Vevey, Switzerland) is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight ( STS-46) was in 1992, and his final spaceflight (STS-103) was in 1999. He ...
(Switzerland),
Wubbo Ockels
Wubbo Johannes Ockels (28 March 1946 – 18 May 2014) was a Dutch physicist and astronaut with the European Space Agency who, in 1985, became the first Dutch citizen in space when he flew on STS-61-A as a payload specialist. He later becam ...
(Netherlands),
Franco Malerba
Franco Egidio Malerba (born 10 October 1946 in Busalla, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy) is an Italian astronaut and Member of the European Parliament. He was the first citizen of Italy to travel to space. In 1994, he was elected to the Europea ...
(Italy)
1979
August – USAF
Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program The Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program was an effort by the United States Air Force to train American military personnel as payload specialists for United States Department of Defense missions on the Space Shuttle program.
Background
The United St ...
– Group 1
(USA)
:Frank J. Casserino, Jeffrey E. Detroye, Michael A. Hamel, Terry A. Higbee, Daryl J. Joseph, Malcolm W. Lydon,
Gary E. Payton, Jerry J. Rij, Paul A. Sefchek, Eric E. Sundberg, David M. Vidrine, John B. Watterson, Keith C. Wright
: Of this group, only Payton ever flew into space, as a Payload Specialist aboard a dedicated Department of Defense Shuttle flight.
April 1 – 1979 Intercosmos Group (USSR)
:
Tuân Pham (Vietnam),
Thanh Liem Bui (Vietnam)
1980
May 29 –
NASA Group 9 (USA)
: Pilots:
John Blaha
John Elmer Blaha (born August 26, 1942, in San Antonio, Texas) is a retired United States Air Force colonel and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five space missions aboard the Space Shuttle and Mir.
Blaha is married to the former Bren ...
,
Charles Bolden
Charles Frank Bolden Jr. (born August 19, 1946) is a former Administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and a former astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
He graduated from the United States Naval A ...
,
Roy Bridges,
Guy Gardner Guy Gardner may refer to:
* Guy Gardner (astronaut) (born 1948), United States Air Force officer and former astronaut
* Guy Gardner (character)
Guy Gardner, one of the characters known as Green Lantern, is a superhero appearing in American comic ...
,
Ronald Grabe,
Bryan O'Connor,
Richard N. Richards
Richard Noel "Dick" Richards (born August 24, 1946), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, chemical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut. He flew aboard four Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990 ...
,
Michael J. Smith
Michael John Smith (April 30, 1945 – January 28, 1986), (Capt USN) was an American engineer and astronaut. He served as the pilot of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' when it was destroyed during the STS-51-L mission, when it broke up 7 ...
: Mission specialists:
James Bagian,
Franklin Chang–Diaz,
Mary Cleave,
Bonnie Dunbar
Bonnie Jeanne Dunbar (born March 3, 1949) is an American engineer and retired NASA astronaut. She flew on five Space Shuttle missions between 1985 and 1998, including two dockings with the ''Mir'' space station. Since leaving NASA, she has worke ...
,
William Fisher,
David Hilmers
David Carl Hilmers, M.D. (born January 28, 1950) is a former NASA astronaut who flew four Space Shuttle missions. He was born in Clinton, Iowa, but considers DeWitt, Iowa, to be his hometown. He has two grown sons. His recreational interests inc ...
,
David Leestma
David Cornell Leestma (born May 6, 1949) is a former American astronaut and retired Captain in the United States Navy.
Personal data
Born May 6, 1949, in Muskegon, Michigan. He and his wife have six children. He enjoys golfing, tennis, aviation, ...
,
John Lounge
John Michael "Mike" Lounge (June 28, 1946March 1, 2011) was an American engineer, a United States Navy officer, a Vietnam War veteran, and a NASA astronaut. A veteran of three Space Shuttle flights, Lounge logged over 482 hours in space. He was ...
,
Jerry Ross,
Sherwood Spring,
Robert Springer
:International mission specialists:
Claude Nicollier
Claude Nicollier (born 2 September 1944 in Vevey, Switzerland) is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight ( STS-46) was in 1992, and his final spaceflight (STS-103) was in 1999. He ...
,
Wubbo Ockels
Wubbo Johannes Ockels (28 March 1946 – 18 May 2014) was a Dutch physicist and astronaut with the European Space Agency who, in 1985, became the first Dutch citizen in space when he flew on STS-61-A as a payload specialist. He later becam ...
: Of this group, Franklin Chang-Diaz would become the first Hispanic-American in space, Michael Smith would perish in the
Challenger disaster
On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). It was ...
, and John Blaha would fly aboard the
Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
space station. Both Jerry Ross and Chang-Diaz currently jointly hold the record of number of crewed spaceflights flown, at seven. Charles Bolden was chosen in 2009 to become the second NASA astronaut and the first African-American to the post of
NASA Administrator
The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the highest-ranking official of NASA, the national space agency of the United States. The administrator is NASA's chief decision maker, responsible for providing clarity to ...
on a full-time basis (although Frederick Gregory, who is also African-American and a former Shuttle commander, held the post on a temporary basis between the departure of
Sean O'Keefe
Sean Charles O'Keefe (born January 27, 1956) is a university professor at Syracuse University Maxwell School, former chairman of Airbus Group, Inc., former Secretary of the Navy, former Administrator of NASA, and former chancellor of Louisiana ...
and the appointment of
Michael Griffin in 2005). The announcement, made a day before the conclusion of the
STS-125
STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''.
The launch of ...
flight to the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
, was coincidental, because Bolden was the pilot on the
telescope's deployment flight in 1990.
July 30 –
LII–1/IMBP–3/MAP/
NPOE-5/AN–2 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)
: LII-1:
Anatoly Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin,
Rimantas Stankevicius,
Igor Volk
Igor Petrovich Volk (russian: Игорь Петрович Волк, ; 12 April 1937 – 3 January 2017) was a Soviet test pilot and cosmonaut in the Buran programme. Military and test pilot
Volk became a pilot in the Soviet Air Forces in ...
: IBMP: Galina Amelkina, Yelena Dobrokvashina, Larisa Pozharskaya, Tamara Zakharova
: MAP:
Svetlana Savitskaya
: NPOE: Yekaterina Ivanova, Natalya Kuleshova, Irina Pronina
: AN–2: Irina Latysheva
1980 – CNES Group 1 (France)
:
Patrick Baudry
Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry (born March 6, 1946 in Cameroon) is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the French Air Force and a former CNES astronaut. In 1985, he became the second French citizen in space, after Jean-Loup Chrétien, when he flew aboar ...
,
Jean-Loup Chrétien
Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien (born 20 August 1938) is a French retired ''Général de Brigade'' (brigadier general) in the ''Armée de l'Air'' (French air force), and a former CNES spationaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions a ...
: Chrétien and Baudry would become the first Frenchmen in space. Chrétien flew with Soviets to
Salyut 7
Salyut 7 (russian: Салют-7; en, Salute 7) (a.k.a. DOS-6, short for Durable Orbital Station) was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last vi ...
in 1982, and Baudry on Space Shuttle
STS-51-G
STS-51-G was the 18th flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the fifth flight of Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. The seven-day mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 17, 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif ...
flight in 1985. Chrétien would later fly to the
Space Station Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
and would become a Shuttle Mission Specialist in the 1990s.
1982
August – USAF
Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program The Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program was an effort by the United States Air Force to train American military personnel as payload specialists for United States Department of Defense missions on the Space Shuttle program.
Background
The United St ...
(Group 2)
:James B. Armor, Jr., Michael W. Booen,
Livingston L. Holder, Jr.,
Larry D. James,
Charles E. Jones, Maureen C. LaComb, Michael R. Mantz, Randy T. Odle,
William A. Pailes
William Arthur Pailes (Colonel, USAF) (born June 26, 1952) is a former USAF astronaut in the Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program during the mid-1980s. He served as a payload specialist on STS-51-J ''Atlantis'' (October 3–7, 1985).
Personal
P ...
, Craig A. Puz, Katherine E. Roberts, Jess M. Sponable, W. David Thompson, Glenn S. Yeakel
:Jones was killed on
September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
, as a passenger aboard
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 as part of the September 11 attacks. Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta deliberately crashed the plane into the North Tower ...
. Of this group, only Pailes ever flew in space, aboard a dedicated Department of Defense Shuttle mission as a Payload Specialist.
September 11 – 1982
Intercosmos
Interkosmos (russian: Интеркосмос) was a Soviet space program, designed to help the Soviet Union's allies with crewed and uncrewed space missions.
The program was formed in April 1967 in Moscow. All members of the program from USSR ...
Group (India)
:
Ravish Malhotra
Ravish Malhotra (born 25 December 1943 in Lahore, British India) is a retired Air commodore (India), Air Commodore of the Indian Air Force. He was an Air Force test pilot stationed at the test centre in Bangalore. He was also the Air Officer Com ...
,
Rakesh Sharma
Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, AC (born 13 January 1949) is a former Indian Air Force pilot who flew aboard Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme. He is the only Indian citizen to travel in space, although ...
December 1 – Spacelab Payload Specialists Group (Germany)
:
Reinhard Furrer,
Ernst Messerschmid
Ernst Willi Messerschmid (born 21 May 1945) is a German physicist and former astronaut.
Born in Reutlingen, Germany, Messerschmid finished the ''Technisches Gymnasium'' in Stuttgart in 1965. After two years of military service he studied physics ...
1983
April 25 – The second group of test pilots for the project "Buran" – Gromov Flight Research Institute group) (USSR)
:Ural Sultanov and
Magomed Tolboev
December –
NRC Group (Canada)
:
Roberta Bondar
Roberta Lynn Bondar (; born December 4, 1945) is a Canadian astronaut, neurologist and consultant. She is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space.
After more than a decade as head of an international space medicine ...
,
Marc Garneau
Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau (born February 23, 1949) is a Canadian politician, retired Royal Canadian Navy officer and former astronaut who served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Garneau was the mini ...
,
Steve MacLean,
Ken Money
Kenneth Eric Money (born January 4, 1935 in Toronto, Ontario) is a scientist specialising in the human ear, and a former Olympic high jumper. He works at the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine in Toronto. He has published over ...
,
Robert Thirsk
Robert Brent "Bob" Thirsk, (born August 17, 1953) is a Canadian engineer and physician, and a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut. He holds the Canadian record for the most time spent in space (204 days 18 hours). He became an officer of th ...
, and
Bjarni Tryggvason
Bjarni Valdimar Tryggvason (September 21, 1945 – April 5, 2022) was an Icelandic-born Canadian engineer and a NRC/CSA astronaut. He served as a Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle mission STS-85 in 1997, a 12-day mission to study changes in ...
:This first Canadian astronaut group was selected by the
National Research Council National Research Council may refer to:
* National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development
* National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome
* National Research Council (United States), part of ...
and were transferred to the
Canadian Space Agency
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; french: Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''.
The president is Lisa Campbell, who took the position on September 3, 2020 ...
(CSA) when it was created in 1989. All the astronauts flew on the US Space Shuttle by 1997 except Ken Money, who resigned from CSA in 1992.
1984
February 15 –
NPOE–6 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)
:
Aleksandr Kaleri
Aleksandr "Sasha" Yuriyevich Kaleri (russian: Александр Юрьевич Калери; born in Jūrmala, Latvia on 13 May 1956) is a Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Statio ...
and Sergei Yemelyanov
May 23 –
NASA Group 10 – ''The Maggots'' (USA)
:Pilots:
Kenneth Cameron,
John Casper
John Howard Casper (born July 9, 1943) is a former American astronaut and retired United States Air Force pilot.
Early life and education
Although born on July 9, 1943, in Greenville, South Carolina, Casper considers Gainesville, Georgia to b ...
,
Frank Culbertson,
Sidney Gutierrez,
Blaine Hammond,
Michael McCulley,
James Wetherbee
:Mission specialists:
James Adamson,
Ellen Baker,
Mark Brown,
Sonny Carter
Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter Jr., Doctor of Medicine, M.D. (August 15, 1947 – April 5, 1991), (Captain (United States O-6), Capt, United States Navy, USN), was an American chemist, physician, professional soccer player, United States Navy, na ...
,
Marsha Ivins
Marsha Sue Ivins (born April 15, 1951) is an American retired astronaut and a veteran of five Space Shuttle missions.
Career
Ivins, born April 15, 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland, graduated from Nether Providence High School in Wallingford, Penns ...
,
Mark Lee,
David Low,
William Shepherd
William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd (born July 26, 1949), ( Capt, USN, Ret.), is an American former Navy SEAL, aerospace, ocean, and mechanical engineer, and NASA astronaut, who served as Commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the Interna ...
,
Kathryn Thornton,
Charles "Lacy" Veach
:Of this group, William Shepherd would become the commander of the first
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
crew (''
Expedition 1
Expedition 1 was the first long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from November 2000 to March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the ...
''). James Wetherbee would become the only person to command five spaceflight missions. Sonny Carter died in 1991 in a plane crash while on NASA business.
June 12 – The third group of test pilots for the project "Buran" – Gromov Flight Research Institute group (USSR)
Victor Zabolotski.
1985
May – ISRO Insat Group (India)
:Nagapathi Chidambar Bhat and
Paramaswaren Radhakrishnan Nair.
:Although selected to fly on the Space Shuttle, none of the group members flew due to the ''Challenger'' disaster of 1986. Bhat was assigned to a
shuttle flight that was cancelled in the wake of ''Challenger''.
June (Mexico)
:
Rodolfo Neri Vela
Rodolfo Neri Vela (born 19 February 1952) is a Mexican scientist and astronaut who flew aboard a NASA Space Shuttle mission in the year 1985. He is the second Latin American to have traveled to space.
Personal
Neri was born in Chilpancingo, Gue ...
,
Ricardo Peralta y Fabi
Ricardo Peralta y Fabi (August 15, 1950 – December 31, 2017) was a Mexican mechanical engineer and former astronaut trainee who was a backup for astronaut Rodolfo Neri Vela on STS-61-B. Peralta was one of three people selected among 400 applicant ...
:Note: Neri Vela flew on Shuttle mission STS-61-B, in November 1985.
June 4 –
NASA Group 11 (USA)
:Pilots:
Michael A. Baker
Michael Allen Baker (born October 27, 1953) is a retired captain in the United States Navy, former NASA astronaut, and the International Space Station Program Manager for International and Crew Operations, at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He is r ...
,
Robert D. Cabana
Robert Donald Cabana (born January 23, 1949) is the Associate Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), a NASA astronaut (currently as a non-flight eligible management astronaut), and a veteran of four Space Shuttl ...
,
Brian Duffy,
Terence Henricks,
Stephen Oswald,
Stephen Thorne
Stephen John Thorne (2 March 1935 – 26 May 2019) was a British actor of radio, film, stage, and television. He was best known for his regular BBC Radio 4 work and audiobook recordings, and for his portrayals of several ''Doctor Who'' villains ...
:Mission Specialists:
Jerome Apt
Jerome "Jay" Apt III, Ph.D. (born April 28, 1949 in Massachusetts) is an American astronaut and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Before he became an astronaut, Apt was a physicist who worked on the Pioneer Venus 1978 space probe project, ...
,
Charles Gemar,
Linda Godwin
Linda Maxine Godwin Ph.D. (born July 2, 1952) is an American scientist and retired NASA astronaut. Godwin joined NASA in 1980 and became an astronaut in July 1986. She retired in 2010. During her career, Godwin completed four space flights and ...
,
Richard Hieb
Richard James Hieb (born September 21, 1955 in Jamestown, North Dakota) is a former NASA astronaut and a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. He was a mission specialist on STS-39 and STS-49, and was a payload commander on STS-65. After lea ...
,
Tamara Jernigan
Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan (born May 7, 1959) is an American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. During her career she completed five Space Shuttle program missions (three on ''Columbia'' and one each on '' Endeavour'' and ''Discov ...
,
Carl Meade
Carl Joseph Meade (born November 16, 1950) is a former NASA astronaut.
Personal data
Born November 16, 1950, at Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois. Married. Two sons. Resides in Canyon Country, California. He enjoys woodworking, home-built aircraf ...
,
Pierre Thuot
:
* Thorne was killed in the crash of a private airplane before his first flight assignment.
July 19 – NASA
Teacher in Space Program (USA)
:
Christa McAuliffe
Sharon Christa McAuliffe ( Corrigan; September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) was an American teacher and astronaut from Concord, New Hampshire, who was killed on the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L where she was serving as a ...
,
Barbara Morgan
Barbara Radding Morgan (born November 28, 1951) is an American teacher and a former NASA astronaut. She participated in the Teacher in Space program as backup to Christa McAuliffe for the 1986 ill-fated STS-51-L mission of the Space Shuttle ...
:McAuliffe and Morgan were selected as the prime and backup Payload Specialists for the
STS-51-L
STS-51-L was the 25th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program and the final flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''.
Planned as the first Teacher in Space Project flight in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days and performing a ...
mission in 1985. McAuliffe was killed in the
''Challenger'' disaster, 73 seconds after liftoff. Morgan would later join the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1998. She flew on the
STS-118
STS-118 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by the orbiter '' Endeavour''. STS-118 lifted off on 8 August 2007 from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida and landed at the Shuttle Landing Fac ...
mission in 2007, 21 years after ''Challenger''.
August 1 – 1985
NASDA
The , or NASDA, was a Japanese national space agency established on October 1, 1969 under the National Space Development Agency Law only for peaceful purposes. Based on the Space Development Program enacted by the Minister of Education, Culture, ...
Group (Japan)
:
Mamoru Mohri,
Chiaki Mukai
is a Japanese physician and JAXA astronaut. She was the first Japanese woman in space, the first Japanese citizen to have two spaceflights, and the first Asian woman in space. Both were Space Shuttle missions; her first was STS-65 aboard Spac ...
,
Takao Doi
is a Japanese astronaut, engineer and veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Doi holds a doctorate from the University of Tokyo in aerospace engineering, and has studied and published in the fields of propulsion systems and microgravity te ...
August – USAF
Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program The Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program was an effort by the United States Air Force to train American military personnel as payload specialists for United States Department of Defense missions on the Space Shuttle program.
Background
The United St ...
– Group 3
[Cassutt, Michael.]
The Manned Space Flight Engineer Programme
" ''Spaceflight'', January 1989. (USA)
:Joseph J. Caretto, Robert B. Crombie, Frank M. DeArmond, David P. Staib, Jr., Teresa M. Stevens
September 2 –
GKNII–2/
NPOE–7 Cosmonaut Group (USSR)
:GKNII:
Viktor Afanasyev,
Anatoly Artsebarsky
Anatoly Pavlovich Artsebarsky ( uk, Анатолій Павлович Арцебарський, russian: Анатолий Павлович Арцебарский; born 9 September 1956) is a former Soviet cosmonaut.
He became a cosmonaut in 1985 ...
,
Gennadi Manakov
Gennady Mikhailovich Manakov (russian: Геннадий Михайлович Манаков; 1 June 1950 – 26 September 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who commanded two Soyuz flights to the Mir space station.
He was born in Yefimovka ...
:NPOE:
Sergei Krikalyov
Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (russian: Сергей Константинович Крикалёв, also transliterated as Sergei Krikalyov; born 27 August 1958) is a Russian mechanical engineer, former cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Ga ...
,
Andrei Zaytsev
September 18 – CNES Group 2 (France)
:
Claudie André–Deshays,
Jean–François Clervoy,
Jean–Jacques Favier,
Jean–Pierre Haigneré,
Frédéric Patat,
Michel Tognini
Michel Ange-Charles Tognini (born 30 September 1949 in Vincennes, France) is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as hea ...
,
Michel Viso
September 30 – 1985 Intercosmos Group (Syria)
:
Muhammed Ahmed Faris,
Munir Habib Habib {{redirect, Monir, the village in Iran, Monir, Iran
Muneer (also spelled Moneer, Monir, Mounir, or Muneyr, ar, منير, meaning ''illuminating'', ''lightsome'', ''bright'', ''luminous'') is a masculine Arabic given name, it may refer to:
Given na ...
October – Indonesian Palapa Group (Indonesia)
:
Taufik Akbar
Taufik Akbar (born 8 January 1951 in Medan) is an Indonesian engineer and former astronaut candidate.
After graduating at the Bandung Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1975, he worked as a telecommun ...
,
Pratiwi Sudarmono
:Due to the ''
Challenger'' accident, none of the group members flew in space. Sudarmono was assigned to a
shuttle flight in 1986, with Akbar as her backup.
December 27 – ATLAS–1 (ESA)
:
Dirk D. Frimout
Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout (born 21 March 1941 in Poperinge, Belgium) is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. He flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-45 as a payload specialist, making him the first Belgian in ...
(Belgium)
1986
January 2 – The fourth group of test pilots for the project "Buran" – Gromov Flight Research Institute group (USSR)
Sergey Tresvyatski and Yuri Schaeffer.
:Per the June 5, 1987 decision of the Interdepartmental Qualification Committee (IAC), all Buran test pilots were awarded the qualification ''test cosmonaut''.
1987
January 5 – Shipka Group (Bulgaria)
:
Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Krasimir Stoyanov
March 26 –
TsPK–8/
NPOE-8 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)
:TsPK:
Valery Korzun
Valery Grigoryevich Korzun (russian: Валерий Григорьевич Корзун, born 5 March 1953) is a Russian cosmonaut. He has been in space twice totalling 381 days. He has also conducted four career spacewalks.
Personal
He is a R ...
,
Vladimir Dezhurov
Vladimir Nikolayevich Dezhurov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Дежу́ров; born July 30, 1962) is a Russian former cosmonaut who resides in Star City, Moscow. He is a veteran of two spaceflights, to the Mir and Internatio ...
,
Yuri Gidzenko
Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (russian: link=no, Юрий Павлович Гидзенко; born March 26, 1962) is a Russian cosmonaut. He was a test cosmonaut of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK). Gidzenko has flown into space thre ...
,
Yuri Malenchenko
Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko (russian: Юрий Иванович Маленченко; born December 22, 1961) is a retired Russian cosmonaut. Malenchenko became the first person to marry in space, on 10 August 2003, when he married Ekaterina Dmit ...
,
Vasily Tsibliyev
Vasily Vasiliyevich Tsibliyev (russian: Василий Василиевич Циблиев); born on February 20, 1954) is retired Russian cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Life
He was selected as a cosmona ...
:NPOE:
Sergei Avdeyev
Sergei Vasilyevich Avdeyev (Сергей Васильевич Авдеев; born 1 January 1956) is a Russian engineer and cosmonaut.
Avdeyev was born in Chapayevsk, Samara Oblast (formerly Kuybyshev Oblast), Russian SFSR. He graduated from Mos ...
June 5 –
NASA Group 12 – ''The GAFFers'' (USA)
:Pilots:
Andrew M. Allen
Andrew Michael "Andy" Allen (born 4 August 1955) is a retired American astronaut. A former Marine aviator and lieutenant colonel, he worked as a test pilot before joining NASA in 1987. He flew three Space Shuttle missions before retiring in 199 ...
,
Kenneth Bowersox
Kenneth Dwane "Sox" Bowersox (born November 14, 1956) is a United States Navy officer, and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five Space Shuttle launches and an extended stay aboard the International Space Station. When he launched on STS ...
,
Curtis Brown,
Kevin Chilton
Kevin Patrick "Chilli" Chilton (born November 3, 1954) is an American mechanical engineer and retired United States Air Force four-star general, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. His last assignment was as commander of U.S. Strategic Command from ...
,
Donald McMonagle
Donald Ray McMonagle (born May 14, 1952) (Colonel (United States), Col, United States Air Force, USAF, Ret.) is a former astronaut and a veteran of three shuttle flights. He became the Manager, Launch Integration, at the Kennedy Space Center, Flor ...
,
William Readdy,
Kenneth Reightler
:Mission specialists:
Thomas Akers
Thomas Dale Akers (born May 20, 1951) is a former American astronaut in NASA's Space Shuttle program.
Education
Akers was the valedictorian of his 29-member 1969 senior class from Eminence, Missouri. He worked summers as a park ranger in the ...
,
Jan Davis,
Michael Foale
Colin Michael Foale (; born 6 January 1957) is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six space missions, and is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the Internat ...
,
Gregory Harbaugh,
Mae Jemison,
Bruce Melnick,
Mario Runco,
James Voss
:The group's informal nickname is an acronym for "
George Abbey Final Fifteen." Of this group, Mae Jemison would become the first female African-American in space, while Michael Foale would serve on extended missions to both
Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
and the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
, as well as a mission to service the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
.
:At the time of the
''Columbia'' accident in 2003, William Readdy was Associate Administrator for Space Flight and Kenneth Bowersox was commanding the ''
Expedition 6
Expedition 6 was the sixth expedition to the International Space Station (25 November 2002 - 3 May 2003). It was the last three-man crew to reside on the station until the arrival of STS-121. The crew performed two spacewalks in support of main ...
'' crew on the ISS. Chilton, after leaving NASA, became the first NASA astronaut to become a full
General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...
in the
US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
(Lt. Gen.
Thomas Stafford, USAF, and VADM
Richard Truly
Richard Harrison Truly (born November 12, 1937) is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy, a former fighter pilot, engineer, astronaut, and was the eighth administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) fro ...
, USN were three-star officers) and held the position of commander,
US Strategic Command
United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for Strategic_nuclear_weapon, ...
.
August 3 – 1987 German Group
:
Renate Brümmer
Renate Luise Brümmer (born 4 May 1955) is a Swiss-born German meteorological scientist and former astronaut. Specialising in satellite meteorology, she was selected as an astronaut in 1987, retiring in 1993, having never been into space.
Early ...
,
Hans Schlegel
Hans Wilhelm Schlegel ( Überlingen, 3 August 1951) is a German physicist, a former ESA astronaut, and a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Early life and education
Schlegel, born and raised in Germany, graduated as an international e ...
,
Gerhard Thiele
Gerhard Paul Julius Thiele (born September 2, 1953) is a German physicist and a former ESA astronaut. He is the father of Die Astronautin candidate Insa Thiele-Eich.
Early life and education
Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, he attended the Frie ...
,
Heike Walpot
Heike John (now Heike Walpot; born 19 June 1960) is a German retired swimmer and former astronaut candidate.
She won a bronze medal at the 1977 European Aquatics Championships. She competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in the 100 m and 200 m back ...
,
Ulrich Walter
Ulrich Hans Walter (born February 9, 1954) is a Germans, German physicist, engineer and a former German Aerospace Center, DFVLR astronaut.
Education
Walter was born in Iserlohn. After finishing secondary school there and two years in the Bundes ...
1988
February 12 – OS "Mir" Group (Afghanistan)
:
Mohammad Dauran Ghulam Masum,
Abdul Ahad Mohmand
Abdul Ahad Momand (; born 1959) is a Afghan-German and former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first, and currently only, Afghan citizen to journey to outer space.
He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard the ...
1989
January 25 –
IMBP–5/
GKNII–3/
NPOE–9/
TsPK–10 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)
:IMBP:
Vladimir Karashtin,
Vasili Lukiyanyuk,
Boris Morukov
Boris Vladimirovich Morukov (russian: Бори́с Влади́мирович Моруков; 1 October 1950 – 1 January 2015) was a Russian physician at the State Research Center RF-Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP). He trained with the ...
:GNKII:
Anatoli Polonsky,
Valeri Tokarev
Valeri Ivanovich Tokarev (russian: Валерий Иванович Токарев; born 29 October 1952) is a Russian Air Force Colonel and test cosmonaut at the Yuri A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Tokarev traveled to space twice, and has p ...
,
Aleksandr Yablontsev
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants li ...
:NPOE:
Nikolai Budarin
Nikolai Mikhailovich Budarin (russian: Николай Михайлович Бударин) (born April 29, 1953 in Kirya, Chuvashia) is a retired Russian cosmonaut, a veteran of three extended space missions aboard the Mir Space Station and the ...
,
Yelena Kondakova
Yelena Vladimirovna Kondakova (russian: link=no, Елена Владимировна Кондакóва; born March 30, 1957) is the third Soviet or Russian female cosmonaut to travel to space and the first woman to make a long-duration spaceflig ...
,
Aleksandr Poleshchuk
Aleksandr Fyodorovich Poleshchuk (russian: Александр Фёдорович Полещук, born October 30, 1953) is a Russian cosmonaut.
Biography
Born in Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk region, he graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1 ...
,
Yury Usachov
Yury Vladimirovich Usachov (russian: Юрий Владимирович Усачёв; born October 9, 1957) is a former cosmonaut who resides in Star City, Moscow. Usachov is a veteran of four spaceflights, including two long duration missions on b ...
:TsPK:
Sergei Kirchevsky
Sergius is a male given name of Ancient Roman origin after the name of the Latin ''gens'' Sergia or Sergii of regal and republican ages. It is a common Christian name, in honor of Saint Sergius, or in Russia, of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, and ...
,
Gennady Padalka
Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (russian: Гeннадий Иванович Падалка; born 21 June 1958 in Krasnodar, Soviet Union) is a Russian Air Force officer and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka currently holds the world record for List of spac ...
,
Yury Onufriyenko
Col. Yuri Ivanovich Onufrienko (russian: Юрий Иванович Онуфриенко, ua, Юрій Іванович Онуфрієнко; born 6 February 1961) is a retired Russian cosmonaut. He is a veteran of two extended spaceflights, aboa ...
22 March – The last group of test pilots for the Buran project – Gromov Flight Research Institute group) (USSR)
:
Yuri Prikhodko Yuri may refer to:
People and fictional characters
Given name
*Yuri (Slavic name), the Slavic masculine form of the given name George, including a list of people with the given name Yuri, Yury, etc.
*Yuri (Japanese name), also Yūri, feminine Jap ...
:Officially, the cosmonaut corps LII (Letno-ispitatelny Institut = Flight Research Institute) ceased to exist in 2002, having gone through a long period of inactivity since the closure of the Buran program in 1993. Of all those selected and trained, only two cosmonauts traveled to space:
Igor Volk
Igor Petrovich Volk (russian: Игорь Петрович Волк, ; 12 April 1937 – 3 January 2017) was a Soviet test pilot and cosmonaut in the Buran programme. Military and test pilot
Volk became a pilot in the Soviet Air Forces in ...
and
Anatoly Levchenko. More information about the Buran space flight program and Soyuz-Savior, the ''Soyuz-spasatel'' program and its cosmonauts, who were trained to fly in space, can be found on the Buran program website.
May 23 – 1989 Italian Group
:
Franco Malerba
Franco Egidio Malerba (born 10 October 1946 in Busalla, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Italy) is an Italian astronaut and Member of the European Parliament. He was the first citizen of Italy to travel to space. In 1994, he was elected to the Europea ...
,
Franco Rossitto
Franco may refer to:
Name
* Franco (name)
* Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975
* Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître"
Prefix
* Franco, a prefix used when ref ...
,
Umberto Guidoni
Umberto Guidoni (born 18 August 1954 in Rome) is an Italian astrophysicist, science writer and a former ESA astronaut, being the first European to visit the International Space Station. He is a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions. He was ...
, Cristiano Batalli Cosmovici
September 29 – ATLAS Payload Specialists (NASA)
:Charles R. Chappell, Michael Lampton, Byron K. Lichtenberg
November 25 – Project Juno (UK-Soviet Union)
:Helen Sharman (UK) and Timothy Mace (UK)
:Sharman became the first British-born person to go into space onboard Soyuz TM-12 in May 1991.
1990
January 17 – NASA Astronaut Group 13, NASA Group 13 – ''The Hairballs'' (USA)
:Pilots: Kenneth Cockrell, Eileen Collins, William G. Gregory, James Halsell, Charles Precourt, Richard Searfoss, Terrence Wilcutt
:Mission specialists: Daniel Bursch, Leroy Chiao, Michael R. Clifford, Bernard Harris, Susan Helms, Thomas David Jones, William S. McArthur, William McArthur, James H. Newman, James Newman, Ellen Ochoa, Ronald Sega, Nancy Currie, Donald A. Thomas, Janice Voss, Carl E. Walz, Peter Wisoff, David Wolf (astronaut), David Wolf
:Collins would go on to be the first female shuttle pilot, the first female shuttle commander, and then commander of the second "STS-114, Return to Flight" mission in 2005. The "Hairballs" nickname, according to Jones in his book ''Sky Walking'', came after the group, the 13th NASA astronaut class, put a black cat on its group patch.
February – CNES Group 3 (France)
:Léopold Eyharts, Jean-Marc Gasparini, Philippe Perrin, Benoit Silve
: Group 3 was the last group of CNES astronauts chosen. In 1999, all remaining active CNES astronauts were transferred to the ESA Astronaut Corps.
May 11 – Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, TsPK–11 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)
:Talgat Musabayev, Vladimir Severin, Salizhan Sharipov, Sergei Vozovikov, Sergei Zalyotin
October 8 – 1990 German Group
:Reinhold Ewald, Klaus-Dietrich Flade, Klaus–Dietrich Flade
1992
March 3 – S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, NPOE-10 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:Aleksandr Lazutkin, Sergei Treshchov, Pavel Vinogradov
March 31 – NASA Astronaut Group 14, NASA Group 14 – ''The Hogs'' (USA)
:Pilots: Scott Horowitz, Brent Jett, Kevin Kregel, Kent Rominger
:Mission specialists: Daniel T. Barry, Charles E. Brady, Jr., Charles Brady, Catherine Coleman, Michael Gernhardt, John Grunsfeld, Wendy Lawrence, Jerry Linenger, Richard Linnehan, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Scott Parazynski, Winston Scott, Steven Smith (astronaut), Steven Smith, Joseph R. Tanner, Joseph Tanner, Andy Thomas, Mary Weber
:International mission specialists:
Marc Garneau
Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau (born February 23, 1949) is a Canadian politician, retired Royal Canadian Navy officer and former astronaut who served as a Cabinet minister from 2015 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Garneau was the mini ...
(Canada), Chris Hadfield (Canada), Maurizio Cheli (Italy), Jean-François Clervoy (France), Koichi Wakata (Japan)
:Beginning with this NASA Group, non-US astronauts representing their home country's space agencies were brought in and trained alongside their NASA counterparts as full-fledged mission specialists, eligible to be assigned to any shuttle mission.
April – 1992 NASDA Group (Japan)
:Koichi Wakata
June – CSA Group 2 (Canada)
:Dafydd Williams, Julie Payette, Chris Hadfield and Michael McKay (astronaut), Michael McKay
:The second Canadian astronaut group were selected by CSA. All the astronauts flew on the US Space Shuttle except Michael McKay, who resigned due to medical reasons.
May 15 – 1992 ESA Group (ESA)
:Maurizio Cheli (Italy),
Jean–François Clervoy (France), Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Marianne Merchez (Belgium), Thomas Reiter (Germany)
1994
April 1 – S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, NPOE–11 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
: Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya, Mikhail Tyurin
December 12 – NASA Astronaut Group 15, NASA Group 15 – ''The Flying Escargot'' (USA)
:Pilots: Scott Altman, Jeffrey Ashby, Michael J. Bloomfield, Michael Bloomfield, Joe F. Edwards, Jr., Joe Edwards, Dominic Gorie, Rick Husband, Steven Lindsey, Pamela Melroy, Susan L. Kilrain, Susan (Still) Kilrain, Frederick Sturckow.
:Mission specialists: Michael P. Anderson, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, Robert Curbeam, Kathryn Hire, Janet L. Kavandi, Janet Kavandi, Edward Lu, Carlos Noriega, James F. Reilly, James Reilly, Stephen Robinson.
:International mission specialists: Jean-Loup Chrétien, Jean–Loup Chrétien (France),
Takao Doi
is a Japanese astronaut, engineer and veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Doi holds a doctorate from the University of Tokyo in aerospace engineering, and has studied and published in the fields of propulsion systems and microgravity te ...
(Japan),
Michel Tognini
Michel Ange-Charles Tognini (born 30 September 1949 in Vincennes, France) is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as hea ...
(France), Dafydd Williams (Canada).
:Husband, Anderson and Chawla were crewmembers on the final Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, ''Columbia'' mission. Chrétien trained as a backup Spacelab crew member in the 1980s and flew on both US and Soviet/Russian spacecraft, along with being the first non-US or Soviet/Russian astronaut to perform a space walk.
1996
February 9 – Russian Federal Space Agency, MKS/S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RKKE–12 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:MKS: Oleg Kotov, Yuri Shargin
:RKKE: Konstantin Kozeyev, Sergei Revin
March 26 – MKS supplemental cosmonaut group (Russia)
:Oleg Kononenko
May 1 – NASA Astronaut Group 16, NASA Group 16 – ''The Sardines'' (USA)
:Pilots: Duane G. Carey, Stephen Frick, Charles O. Hobaugh, James M. Kelly (astronaut), James M. Kelly, Mark Kelly (astronaut), Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly (astronaut), Scott Kelly, Paul Lockhart, Christopher Loria, William Cameron McCool, Mark L. Polansky.
:Mission Specialists: David McDowell Brown, Daniel C. Burbank, Yvonne Cagle, Fernando Caldeiro, Charles Camarda, Laurel Clark, Michael Fincke, Patrick G. Forrester, John Herrington, Joan Higginbotham, Sandra Magnus, Michael J. Massimino, Richard Mastracchio, Lee Morin, Lisa Nowak, Donald Pettit, John L. Phillips, Paul W. Richards, Piers Sellers, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Daniel M. Tani, Rex J. Walheim, Peggy Whitson, Jeffrey Williams (astronaut), Jeffrey Williams, Stephanie Wilson.
:International Mission Specialists: Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden),
Umberto Guidoni
Umberto Guidoni (born 18 August 1954 in Rome) is an Italian astrophysicist, science writer and a former ESA astronaut, being the first European to visit the International Space Station. He is a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions. He was ...
(Italy),
Steve MacLean (Canada),
Mamoru Mohri (Japan), Soichi Noguchi (Japan), Julie Payette (Canada), Philippe Perrin (France),
Gerhard Thiele
Gerhard Paul Julius Thiele (born September 2, 1953) is a German physicist and a former ESA astronaut. He is the father of Die Astronautin candidate Insa Thiele-Eich.
Early life and education
Born in Heidenheim an der Brenz, he attended the Frie ...
(Germany).
:Brown, Clark and McCool were crewmembers on the final Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, ''Columbia'' mission. Mark and Scott Kelly are twin brothers; James Kelly is not related. Loria resigned from his shuttle mission due to injury and never flew before retiring from the astronaut corps. Nowak, who flew on STS-121, was arrested on February 5, 2007, after confronting a woman entangled in a love triangle with a fellow astronaut. She was dismissed by NASA on March 6, the first astronaut to be both grounded and dismissed (prior astronauts who were grounded due to non-medical issues usually resigned or retired).
June – NASDA Group (Japan)
:Soichi Noguchi
October – China Group 1996 (China)
:Li Qinglong, Wu Jie
: Trained at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, joined other twelve pilots as Chinese Group 1 in 1998.
November – Shuttle-97 Group (Ukraine)
:Leonid Kadeniuk, Yaroslav Pustovyi
1997
April (?) – Shuttle Group (Israel)
:Yitzhak Mayo, Ilan Ramon
:Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut to fly in space and also a Payload Specialist on the final mission of Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' (STS-107).
July 28 – Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, TsPK–12/S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RKKE-13 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:TsPK: Dmitri Kondratyev, Yury Lonchakov, Sergei Moshchenko, Oleg Moshkin, Roman Romanenko, Aleksandr Skvortsov (cosmonaut), Aleksandr Skvortsov, Maksim Surayev, Konstantin Valkov, Sergey Alexandrovich Volkov, Sergey Volkov
:RKKE: Oleg Skripochka, Fyodor Yurchikhin
1998
January – Chinese Group 1 (China)
:Chen Quan 陈全, Deng Qingming 邓清明, Fei Junlong 费俊龙, Jing Haipeng 景海鹏, Liu Boming (astronaut), Liu Boming 刘伯明, Liu Wang 刘旺, Nie Haisheng 聂海胜, Pan Zhanchun 潘占春, Yang Liwei 杨利伟, Zhai Zhigang 翟志刚, Zhang Xiaoguang 张晓光, Zhao Chuandong 赵传东
::In October 2003, Yang Liwei became the first man to be sent into space by the space program of China, and his mission, ''Shenzhou 5'', made the PRC the third country to independently send people into space.
February 24 – S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RKKE-14 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:Mikhail Korniyenko
March 2 – OS "Mir" Stefanik Group (Slovakia)
:Ivan Bella, Michal Fulier
June 4 – NASA Astronaut Group 17, NASA Group 17 – ''The Penguins'' (USA)
:Pilots: Lee Archambault, Christopher Ferguson, Kenneth Ham, Gregory C. Johnson, Gregory H. Johnson, William Oefelein, Alan G. Poindexter, Alan Poindexter, George Zamka
:Mission Specialists: Clayton Anderson, Tracy Caldwell, Gregory Chamitoff, Timothy Creamer, Michael Foreman (astronaut), Michael Foreman, Michael E. Fossum, Stanley G. Love, Stanley Love, Leland D. Melvin, Leland Melvin,
Barbara Morgan
Barbara Radding Morgan (born November 28, 1951) is an American teacher and a former NASA astronaut. She participated in the Teacher in Space program as backup to Christa McAuliffe for the 1986 ill-fated STS-51-L mission of the Space Shuttle ...
, John D. Olivas, Nicholas Patrick, Garrett Reisman, Patricia Robertson, Steven Swanson, Douglas H. Wheelock, Douglas Wheelock,
Sunita Williams
Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was ...
, Neil Woodward
:International Mission Specialists: Léopold Eyharts (France), Paolo Nespoli (Italy), Marcos Pontes (Brazil),
Hans Schlegel
Hans Wilhelm Schlegel ( Überlingen, 3 August 1951) is a German physicist, a former ESA astronaut, and a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Early life and education
Schlegel, born and raised in Germany, graduated as an international e ...
(Germany),
Robert Thirsk
Robert Brent "Bob" Thirsk, (born August 17, 1953) is a Canadian engineer and physician, and a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut. He holds the Canadian record for the most time spent in space (204 days 18 hours). He became an officer of th ...
(Canada),
Bjarni Tryggvason
Bjarni Valdimar Tryggvason (September 21, 1945 – April 5, 2022) was an Icelandic-born Canadian engineer and a NRC/CSA astronaut. He served as a Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle mission STS-85 in 1997, a 12-day mission to study changes in ...
(Canada), Roberto Vittori (Italy)
::This group includes Barbara Morgan, who was the backup "Teacher-In-Space" for
Christa McAuliffe
Sharon Christa McAuliffe ( Corrigan; September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) was an American teacher and astronaut from Concord, New Hampshire, who was killed on the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L where she was serving as a ...
of the ill-fated
Challenger Disaster in 1986. While often referred to as an Educator Astronaut, Morgan was selected by NASA as a Mission Specialist before the Educator Astronaut Project was formed.
::Patricia Robertson (née Hilliard) was killed in the crash of a private airplane before she was assigned to a Shuttle mission.
:: Oefelein was dismissed from NASA in 2007 due to his involvement in a love triangle with fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak.
October 7 – 1998 ESA Group (ESA)
:Frank De Winne (Belgium), Léopold Eyharts (France), André Kuipers (Netherlands), Paolo A. Nespoli, Paolo Nespoli (Italy),
Hans Schlegel
Hans Wilhelm Schlegel ( Überlingen, 3 August 1951) is a German physicist, a former ESA astronaut, and a veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.
Early life and education
Schlegel, born and raised in Germany, graduated as an international e ...
(Germany), Roberto Vittori (Italy)
1999
February – 1999 NASDA Group (Japan)
:Satoshi Furukawa, Akihiko Hoshide, Naoko Yamazaki, Naoko Sumino
1 November – 1999 ESA Group (Europe)
:Claudie André-Deshays, Philippe Perrin,
Michel Tognini
Michel Ange-Charles Tognini (born 30 September 1949 in Vincennes, France) is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as hea ...
:The three remaining CNES (France) astronauts transferred to the ESA's astronaut corps in 1999.
2000
July 26 – NASA Astronaut Group 18, NASA Group 18 – ''The Bugs'' (USA)
:Pilots: Dominic A. Antonelli, Eric A. Boe, Kevin A. Ford, Ronald J. Garan, Jr., Douglas G. Hurley, Terry W. Virts, Jr., Barry E. Wilmore
:Mission Specialists: Michael R. Barratt, Robert L. Behnken, Stephen G. Bowen, B. Alvin Drew, Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good, Timothy L. Kopra, K. Megan McArthur, Karen L. Nyberg, Nicole P. Stott
2003
May 23 – Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, TsPK-13/S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RKKE-15/Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, IMBP-6 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:TsPK: Anatoli Ivanishin, Aleksandr Samokutyayev, Anton Shkaplerov, Evgeny Tarelkin, Sergei Aleksandrovich Zhukov, Sergei Zhukov
:RKKE: Oleg Artemyev, Andrei Borisenko, Mark Serov
:IMBP: Sergey Ryazansky
Kazakhstan – Group 1
:Aydyn Aimbetov, Mukhtar Aymakhanov
September 11 – Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipOne (Commercial Astronauts) (USA)
:Brian Binnie, Mike Melvill, Doug Shane, Peter Siebold
:* 2003 marked the first group of
commercial astronaut
A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while represe ...
s. Only Binnie and Melville reached space, during a SpaceShipOne flight. Siebold has also piloted SpaceShipTwo, but no flights have yet reached space.
2004
May 6 – NASA Astronaut Group 19, NASA Group 19 – ''The Peacocks'' (USA)
:Pilots: Randolph Bresnik, James Dutton (astronaut), James Dutton
:Mission specialists: Thomas Marshburn, Christopher Cassidy, R. Shane Kimbrough, José M. Hernández, Robert Satcher, Shannon Walker
:Educator mission specialists: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Dorothy Metcalf–Lindenburger
:International mission specialists: Satoshi Furukawa (Japan), Akihiko Hoshide (Japan), Naoko Yamazaki (Japan)
:This group was the first to include Educator Astronaut Project, educator mission specialists, and the last group to train for
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
flights.
2006
March 30 – Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
:Steve Johnson (astronaut pilot), Steve Johnson, Alistair Hoy, David Mackay (pilot), David MacKay, Alex Tai
September 4 – Angkasawan program, Angkasawan Group (Malaysia)
:Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Faiz Khaleed, S. Vanajah, Siva Vanajah, Mohammed Faiz Kamaludin
:In 2006, four Malaysians were chosen to train for a flight to the International Space Station through the Angkasawan program. Sheikh Muszaphar became the first Malaysian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz TMA-11.
October 11 – Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, TsPK-14/S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RKKE-16 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:TsPK: Aleksandr Misurkin, Oleg Novitskiy, Aleksey Ovchinin, Maksim Ponomaryov, Sergey Nikolayevich Ryzhikov, Sergey Ryzhikov
:RKKE: Yelena Serova, Nikolai Tikhonov (cosmonaut), Nikolai Tikhonov
December 25 – Korean Astronaut Program Group
:Yi So-yeon, Ko San
:Ko San was chosen as the prime candidate over Yi So-yeon in September 2007. Yi So-yeon became prime candidate in March 2008 and made a trip to the ISS with the agency that year.
2008
July – Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
:Robert Bendall, Rich Dancaster, Brad Lambert
2009
February 25 – JAXA Group (Japan)
:Takuya Onishi, Kimiya Yui
May 13 – CSA Group (Canada)
:Jeremy Hansen, David Saint-Jacques
May 20 – ESA Group – ''The Shenanigans'' (ESA)
:Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy), Alexander Gerst (Germany), Andreas Mogensen (Denmark), Luca Parmitano (Italy), Timothy Peake (United Kingdom), Thomas Pesquet (France).
:8413 applications were received. Of those, 1430 (17%) were women. The most common first citizenship of the applicants was France (22.1%), Germany (21.4%), Italy (11.0%), the United Kingdom (9.8%), and Spain (9.4%).
June 29 – NASA Astronaut Group 20, NASA Group 20 – ''Chumps''
(USA)
:Mission Specialists: Serena M. Auñón, Jeanette J. Epps, Jack D. Fischer, Michael S. Hopkins, Kjell N. Lindgren, Kathleen Rubins, Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, Scott D. Tingle, Mark T. Vande Hei, Gregory R. Wiseman, Gregory R. (Reid) Wiseman
:International Mission Specialists: Jeremy Hansen (Canada), Norishige Kanai (Japan), Takuya Onishi (Japan), David Saint-Jacques (Canada), Kimiya Yui (Japan)
:NASA selected the nine members of Group 20 from over 3500 applicants.
The NASA candidates were announced in June; international astronauts were added later that year. This was the first group of astronauts chosen for the post-Space Shuttle era and not trained to fly the Shuttle. Fischer, Tingle, and Wiseman were selected as pilots, but there is currently no distinction between pilots and non-pilots: all are considered Mission Specialists.
September 8 – JAXA Group (Japan)
:Norishige Kanai
2010
March – Chinese Group 2 (China)
:Cai Xuzhe, Chen Dong (astronaut), Chen Dong, Liu Yang (astronaut), Liu Yang, Tang Hongbo, Wang Yaping, Ye Guangfu, Zhang Lu (astronaut), Zhang Lu
April 12 – #Association of Spaceflight Professionals, Association of Spaceflight Professionals – Group 1
["Astronauts for Hire: The Emergence of a Commercial Astronaut Corps,"](_blank)
accessed August 31, 2016.
: Jim Crowell, Bruce Davis, Kristine Ferrone, Amnon Govrin, Chad Healy, Ryan Kobrick, Joseph Palaia, Luís Saraiva, Brian Shiro, Laura Stiles, Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto
June 7 – Association of Spaceflight Professionals – Group 2 (Commercial Astronauts)
: Ben Corbin, José Miguel Hurtado, Jr, Jason Reimuller, Todd Romberger, Erik Seedhouse, Alli Taylor
October 12 – TsPK–15/RKKE–17 Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
:TsPK: Aleksey Khomenchuk (rit.), Denis Matveev, Sergey Prokopyev (cosmonaut), Sergey Prokopyev
:RKKE: Andrei Babkin, Ivan Vagner, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Svyatoslav Morozov (rit.)
2011
January–February – Enrolled in a United squad of Roscosmos astronauts (Russia)
:Oleg Artemyev, Andrei Babkin, Ivan Vagner, Andrei Borisenko, Sergei Aleksandrovich Zhukov, Sergei Zhukov, Oleg Kononenko, Mikhail Kornienko, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Svyatoslav Morozov, Sergei Revin, Sergey Ryazansky, Yelena Serova, Nikolai Tikhonov (cosmonaut), Nikolai Tikhonov.
From 1 January 2011 at the Research Institute of the Y. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center is a single detachment of the Russian Space Agency astronauts, which in 2015 consisted of 38 people. The next set of candidates was announced at the beginning of 2016, then postponed until 2017. In September 2016, the unit counted 31 astronauts.
February 28 – Association of Spaceflight Professionals – Group 3
[Astronauts for Hire Announces Selection of New Flight Members – Feb 28, 2011](_blank)
accessed March 5, 2011.
: Christopher Altman, Jon-Erik Dahlin, Melania Guerra, Mindy Howard, Kris Lehnhardt, Abhishek Tripathi, Cosan Unuvar, Pavel Zagadailov, Luis Zea
October 26 – Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
:Keith Colmer
2012
February – Enrolled in a United squad of Roscosmos cosmonauts (Russia)
:Fyodor Yurchikhin
October 30 – TsPK– Addition Group (Russia)
:Finalists: Oleg Blinov (rit.), Nikolay Chub, Pyotr Dubrov, Andrey Fediaev, Ignat Ignatov, Anna Kikina, Sergey Korsakov (cosmonaut), Sergey Korsakov, Dmitriy Petelin
2013
May 8 Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
:Frederick W. Sturckow (former NASA astronaut), Michael "Sooch" Masucci
June 3 – Association of Spaceflight Professionals – Group 4
: David Ballinger, Jessica Cherry, Michael Gallagher, Jamie Guined, Tanya Markow-Estes, Aaron Persad
June 17 – NASA Astronaut Group 21, NASA Group 21 – ''8-Balls'' (US)
:Josh A. Cassada, Victor J. Glover, Tyler N. Hague, Christina M. Hammock, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne C. McClain, Jessica U. Meir, Andrew R. Morgan
2014
July 24 – Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
: Todd Ericson
August 14 – Individual set into a United detachment of Roscosmos astronauts (Russia)
:Mukhtar Aimakhanov
2015
January 23 – Virgin Galactic Astronaut Pilots Group (Commercial Astronauts) (UK)
: Mark Stucky
July 9 – NASA Commercial Crew Program
:Robert Behnken,
Sunita Williams
Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was ...
, Eric Boe, Douglas Hurley
July – ESA Astronaut Corps
: Matthias Maurer
Copenhagen Suborbitals (Commercial Astronauts) (Denmark)
: Mads Stenfatt, Anna Olsen, Carsten Olsen
2017
June 7 – NASA Astronaut Group 22, NASA Group 22 – ''The Turtles'' (USA)
:Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Robert Hines (astronaut), Robert Hines, Warren Hoburg, Jonny Kim, Robb Kulin, Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara, Francisco Rubio (astronaut), Francisco Rubio, Jessica Watkins.
:Kulin resigned from NASA in August 2018 before completing his training.
July 1 – 2017 CSA Group (Canada)
:Jennifer Sidey, Joshua Kutryk
April 19 – 2017 Die Astronautin Selection (Germany)
:Insa Thiele-Eich, Nicola Baumann (Baumann was later replaced by Suzanna Randall)
2018
August 10 – 17th Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
: Konstantin Borisov, Alexander Gorbunov, Alexander Grebyonkin, Sergei Mikayev, Kirill Peskov, Oleg Platonov (cosmonaut), Oleg Platonov, Yevgeny Prokopyev (rit.), Alexei Zubritsky
* All but Yevgeny Prokopyev passed the state exam in December 2020 to be qualified for spaceflight assignments; Propkopyev did not qualify and was reassigned to basic space training.
September 3 – Emirati Astronaut Group (United Arab Emirates)
: Hazza Al Mansouri, Sultan Al Niadi
* In 2018, Al Mansouri and Al Niadi were announced as candidates to fly to the ISS on a Soyuz, as guest cosmonauts (Al Mansouri flew in 2019, with Al Niadi as his backup). In 2020, the two were named to be assigned to Houston to train as full-fledged mission specialist astronauts and to join the cadre of International Partner Astronauts.
2020
October 8 – Chinese Group 3 (China)
* China announced the selection of 18 new astronauts (17 men, 1 woman), whose names were not revealed, in the following categories:
: 7 spacecraft pilots
: 7 flight engineers
: 4 mission payload specialists
2021
January 27 – 18th Cosmonaut Group (Russia)
: Sergey Irtuganov, Alexander Kolyabin, Sergey Teteryatnikov, Harutyun Kiviryan
April 10 - Emirati Astronaut Group 2 (United Arab Emirates)
: Nora Al Matrooshi, Mohammad Al Mulla
* The two UAE astronauts will begin training alongside the NASA Astronaut Group 23 class after their selection
December 6 – NASA Astronaut Group 23, NASA Group 23 (USA)
: Nichole Ayers, Marcos Berríos, Christina Birch, Deniz Burnham, Luke Delaney (astronaut), Luke Delaney, Andre Douglas, Jack Hathaway, Anil Menon (astronaut), Anil Menon, Christopher Williams (astronaut), Christopher Williams, Jessica Wittner.
2022
On October 2, 2022, the Xinhua News Agency, citing the China Manned Space Agency, released a message about the official start of the recruitment of a new group of astronauts. According to the information provided, it is planned to select 12 - 14 astronauts, including 7 - 8 pilot astronauts and 5-6 flight engineers, of which two will be payload specialists.
November 23 – 2022 ESA Astronaut Group
Commercial advances
The space market exceeds $330 billion today. Current estimates show the number growing to nearly $3 trillion over the next three decades. Human spaceflight is one of the sectors positioned for greatest growth. Commercial astronauts are expected to fill the gap in this transition.
Ansari X Prize
The first commercial astronauts were selected by contenders for the Ansari X PRIZE, the first nongovernmental reusable crewed spacecraft, in 2004. Among them include Starchaser Industries directors Steve Bennett (entrepreneur), Steve Bennett (United Kingdom) and Matt Shewbridge; former NASA astronauts John Bennett Herrington (Pioneer Rocketplane), Richard Searfoss and pilot Dick Rutan (XCOR Aerospace); Canadian engineer Brian Feeney (engineer), Brian Feeney (da Vinci Project); and veteran Wally Funk from Mercury 13 (Interorbital Systems).
Boeing
Boeing hired former
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
astronaut Christopher Ferguson, Chris Ferguson to join the Space Exploration Team. Candidates for Boeing's astronaut corps include former NASA astronauts, commercial scientist astronauts and test pilots who have never flown in space.
SpaceX
SpaceX has employed former NASA astronauts, but did not select any SpaceX employees to fly its commercial vehicles to the International Space Station.
SpaceX's former medical director at SpaceX, Anil Menon (astronaut candidate), Anil Menon, is now a NASA astronaut selected in 2021 as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 23.
Association of Spaceflight Professionals
The world's first commercial astronaut corps, the Association of Spaceflight Professionals received funding for a series of crewed spaceflight missions through the NASA Flight Opportunities Program in March 2012.
Several million dollars have been allocated for detailed spectroscopic analysis of high-altitude noctilucent cloud formations on suborbital flights using rapidly reusable, task-and-deploy spaceplanes.
[Flight Opportunities Program Selects New Technologies for Flight Tests](_blank)
NASA 2017-12-18.[Commercial Suborbital Flight Providers](_blank)
Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicles (sRLV). NASA (Accessed 2018-03-01).
NASA (2017-12-18).
The organization's
commercial astronaut
A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while represe ...
s go through a selection process modeled after the NASA Astronaut Corps, which involves NASA astronauts. Some of its members serve as astronaut trainers themselves; some have interviewed as finalists in national space agency astronaut candidate selection campaigns.
Yi So-yeon, who completed an orbital mission to the International Space Station,
is a member of the organization.
Virgin Galactic
Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic astronauts include Michael Alsbury (killed in the 2014 Virgin Galactic crash), Rob Bendall (Canada), Richard Branson, Peter Kalogiannis, Niki Lauda (Austria), Brian Maisler, Clint Nichols, Wes Persall, Burt Rutan, Peter Seiffert, Peter Siebold, Mark Stucky,
and David Mackay (pilot), Dave Mackay.
Teachers in Space
The Teacher in Space Project#Private program, Teachers in Space program began in 2005. In 2012, the United States Rocket Academy announced that the program was expanding to include a broader range of participants, renaming the initiative Citizens in Space. For its first phase, Citizens in Space selected and trained ten citizen astronaut candidates to fly as payload operators, including four astronaut candidates already in training (Maureen Adams, Steve Heck, Michael Johnson, and Edward Wright). Informal educator and aerospace historian Gregory Kennedy was among those listed.
Copenhagen Suborbitals
Copenhagen Suborbitals (2008, Denmark) seeks to make Denmark the fourth nation to launch humans above the Kármán line.
[First Filipino Astronaut reaching for the stars](_blank)
2013-12-10
Mars One
Mars One was a private initiative with claims to establish a permanent human colony on Mars by 2023. The project was led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, who announced plans for the Mars One mission in May 2012.
A Mars One astronaut selection announcement was made on April 19, 2013, and started its search on April 22, 2013. By August 2013, Mars One had more than 200,000 applicants from around the world. Round Two selection results were declared on December 30, 2013, wherein a total of 1058 applicants from 107 countries were selected.
Mars One received a variety of criticism relating to medical, technical and financial feasibility.
Unverified rumors claimed that Mars One was a scam designed to take as much money as possible from donors, including those participating as contestants.
'Mars One' finalist breaks silence, claims organization is a total scam, 16 March 2015
In February 2019, it was reported that Mars One had declared bankruptcy in a Switzerland, Swiss court on January 15, 2019, and was permanently dissolved as a company.
[Mars One Ventures AG in administration](_blank)
/ref>
Inspiration Mars
Inspiration Mars Foundation, an American nonprofit founded by Dennis Tito, aimed to launch a human mission to flyby Mars in January 2018, or, as the 2018 date was missed, in 2021. Flight candidates included husband and wife travel duo Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, who participated in the Biosphere 2 experiment.
Waypoint2Space
Waypoint 2 Space, Waypoint2Space was granted FAA safety approval for its training services in 2014. The company works in collaboration with NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
Johnson Space Center in Houston to provide spaceflight training.
Truax Engineering
The first private firm that tried to build a suborbital space rocket, Robert Truax#Truax Engineering, Truax Engineering, selected company employee, engineer and lifelong aviator Jeana Yeager as the first test pilot for its rocket. The project was halted in 1991 due to lack of funds.
See also
*Ansari X Prize
*Canadian Arrow
*Human spaceflight
*List of astronauts by name
*List of astronauts by nationality
*List of astronauts by first flight
*List of cosmonauts
*List of private spaceflight companies
*Private spaceflight
*Robert Truax X-3 Volksrocket
References
Citations
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Astronauts By Selection
Lists of astronauts, Selection
Lists by year, Astronauts