This is alist ofastronauts by year of selection: people selected to train for ahuman spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of aspacecraft. Until recently, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the advent ofsuborbital flight starting with privately fundedSpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: thecommercial astronaut.
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 atList of space travelers by name.
Fourteen pilots were directly involved with theX-15, although only twelve actually flew the vehicles. There was no formal selection process, since everyone chosen was already a qualified test pilot.
Scott Crossfield andAlvin White were the prime and backup North American Aviation test pilots who first became involved with the project. Air Force CaptainsIven Kincheloe (prime pilot) andRobert 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 CaptainRobert Rushworth became his backup. The first NASA pilots wereJoseph Walker andNeil Armstrong. Lieutenant CommanderForrest S. Petersen represented the Navy.
Walker and Armstrong were eventually replaced by NASA pilotsJohn B. McKay (1960),Milton Thompson (1963) andWilliam H. Dana (1965). White and Rushworth were succeeded by CaptainJoe Engle (1963), CaptainWilliam Joseph Knight (1964) and MajorMichael Adams (1966). The Navy selected Lieutenant Lloyd Hoover (1924–2016[1]) as Peterson's replacement, though he never trained or flew.[2]
The last surviving member of this group was Joe Engle; he died in 2024.
The first group of astronauts selected byNASA were forProject Mercury in April 1959. All seven were military test pilots, a requirement specified by PresidentEisenhower 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 theApollo–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/Apollo era. Glenn later flew on theSpace Shuttle.
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 flyMercury 10 before its cancellation and was the original commander for theGemini 3 mission, but did not fly due to a medical disqualification. After surgery to correct the problem, he later flew as commander ofApollo 14. 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 hedied in a fire on Apollo 1 during launchpad training. Gordon Cooper was a backup commander forApollo 10, the "dress rehearsal" flight for the lunar landing, and would have commanded another mission—likely to have beenApollo 13, 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 theSkylab norISS 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.
In April 1960, seven men were secretly chosen for theDyna-Soar program. Armstrong had previously been part of theMISS 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.
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-oldTatyana Kuznetsova was, and remains, the youngest person ever selected to train for spaceflight.
September 17 –NASA Group 2 –The Next Nine, akaThe Nifty Nine,The New Nine (USA)
Asecond group of nine astronauts was selected by NASA in September 1962. All of this group flew missions in theGemini program except Elliot See, who died in a flight accident while preparing for theGemini 9 flight. All of the others also flew on Apollo, except for Ed White, who died in theApollo 1 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 onSkylab 2 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 firstgeneral officer and would have been either the prime LM Pilot or backup commander forApollo 14, but left NASA due to a conflict between Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. John Young also later flew on theSpace Shuttle (STS-1 andSTS-9) and would retire from NASA in 2004, 42 years after becoming an astronaut. He was both the first and last of his group to go into space.
The last surviving member of this group was Jim Lovell; he died in 2025.
September 19 – Dyna-Soar Group 2 (USA)
On September 19, 1962,Albert Crews was added to the Dyna-Soar program and the names of the six active Dyna-Soar astronauts were announced to the public.
The last surviving member of this group was Albert Crews; he died in 2025.
While four members of Group 3 died in accidents before ever reaching space—Chaffee in theApollo 1 fire, Bassett, Freeman and Williams in crashes of NASAT-38jet trainers—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 bothApollo 10 andApollo 17, while Bean would command theSkylab 3 mission.
In 1965, three civilian journalists,Yaroslav Golovanov,Yuri Letunov [ru],Mikhail Rebrov [ru], were selected for cosmonaut training in preparation for flight on aVoskhod 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.
The last surviving member of this group was Yaroslav Golovanov; he died in 2003.
June 1 – Medical Group 2 (USSR)
Three physicians were selected for the long-durationVoskhod flights: Yevgeni Illyin (born 1937), Aleksandr Kiselyov (born 1934),Yuri Senkevich. All were subsequently canceled to make way for the Soviet Moon program and dismissed at the beginning of the following year.
Graveline and Michel left NASA without flying in space. Schmitt walked on the Moon withApollo 17. Garriott, Gibson and Kerwin all flew to Skylab. Garriott also flew onSpace Shuttle flightSTS-9, becoming the firstAmateur radio operator (callsign W5LFL) to operate from orbit.
This cosmonaut group was selected for participation in five separateSoyuz programmes that the USSR was running. These included military programs—with and without theAlmaz/Salyutspace stations—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.
This group was selected for training for the US Air Force'sManned Orbiting Laboratory (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 beNASA Administrator.
Veteran astronaut John Young christened this group the "Original Nineteen", in parody of theoriginal seven Mercury astronauts.[4] 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 theApollo–Soyuz Test Project 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 hadpulmonary disease. 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).
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.
As of 2024, the only surviving member is Robert Crippen.
This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's MOL program. Lawrence was the firstAfrican-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, predatingGuion Bluford,Ronald McNair andFrederick Gregory by nine years. Peterson transferred to NASA in 1969 after the MOL cancellation and would fly on theSpace Shuttle. Herres would later become the firstVice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under theGoldwater–Nichols Act in 1987.
As of 2023, the only surviving member is James Abrahamson.
October 4 –NASA Group 6 –XS-11(The Excess Eleven) (USA)
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 asmission 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 and subsequentlyDon Pettit’s most recent flight. England resigned from NASA in 1972 but rejoined the astronaut corps in 1979.
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 be NASA Administrator, holding the post until 1992.
As of July 2024, the final surviving member of this group is Robert Crippen.
September 10 – Civilian Engineer Group (USSR)
Anatoli Demyanenko, Valeri Makrushin, and Dmitri Yuyukov.
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
Protchenko was removed from the squad for health reasons, Ivanov was killed in the crash of aMiG-27 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 theSoyuz T-14/ 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.[8]
Due to the long delay between the lastApollo mission and thefirst flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981, few astronauts from the older groups stayed withNASA—though some did, includingJohn Young. 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, also being the first Jewish American astronaut, as well as the first African-American astronauts to fly,Guion Bluford andFrederick D. Gregory (the first black astronaut wasRobert Henry Lawrence Jr), and the first Asian-American,Ellison Onizuka.Bob Stewart was the firstArmy astronaut to be selected (almost 19 years after the originalMercury Seven). Since then, a new group has been selected roughly every two years.
Two different astronaut groups were formed: pilots and mission specialists. Additionally, theShuttle Program 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). 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 or "Mir-18") to theMir space station, while Shannon Lucid would serve on Mir for slightly over six months, breaking all American space duration records (both theSkylab 4 record and Thagard's) from 1996 to 1997 untilSunita Williams, who was selected 20 years later, broke Lucid's record.
Of this group, Scobee, Resnik, Onizuka, and McNair would perish in theChallenger Disaster. 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 shuttleCAPCOM, up to the final day of the final shuttle mission. After theChallenger disaster, Sally Ride would serve on both theRogers Commission and theColumbia Accident Investigation Board.
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.
Of this group, Franklin Chang-Diaz would become the first Hispanic-American in space, Michael Smith would perish in theChallenger disaster, and John Blaha would fly aboard theMir 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 ofNASA Administrator 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 ofSean O'Keefe and the appointment ofMichael Griffin in 2005). The announcement, made a day before the conclusion of theSTS-125 flight to theHubble Space Telescope, was coincidental, because Bolden was the pilot on thetelescope's deployment flight in 1990.
July 30 –LII–1/IMBP–3/MAP/NPOE-5/AN–2 Cosmonaut Group (Soviet Union)[10]
Chrétien and Baudry would become the first Frenchmen in space. Chrétien flew with Soviets toSalyut 7 in 1982, and Baudry on Space ShuttleSTS-51-G flight in 1985. Chrétien would later fly to theSpace Station Mir and would become a Shuttle mission specialist in the 1990s.
Jones was killed in theSeptember 11 attacks as a passenger aboardAmerican Airlines Flight 11. Of this group, only Pailes ever flew in space, aboard a dedicated Department of Defense Shuttle mission as a Payload Specialist.
This first Canadian astronaut group was selected by theNational Research Council and were transferred to theCanadian Space Agency (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.
Of this group, William Shepherd would become the commander of the firstInternational Space Station crew (Expedition 1). 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)
Although selected to fly on the Space Shuttle, none of the group members flew due to theChallenger disaster of 1986. Bhat was assigned to ashuttle flight that was cancelled in the wake ofChallenger.
McAuliffe and Morgan were selected as the prime and backup Payload Specialists for theSTS-51-L mission in 1985. McAuliffe was killed in theChallenger disaster, 73 seconds after liftoff. Morgan would later join the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1998. She flew on theSTS-118 mission in 2007, 21 years afterChallenger.
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 qualificationtest cosmonaut.
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 bothMir and theInternational Space Station, as well as a mission to service theHubble Space Telescope.
At the time of theColumbia accident in 2003, William Readdy was Associate Administrator for Space Flight and Kenneth Bowersox was commanding theExpedition 6 crew on the ISS. Chilton, after leaving NASA, became the first NASA astronaut to become aGeneral (O-10) in theUS Air Force (Lt. Gen.Thomas Stafford, USAF, and VADMRichard Truly, USN were three-star officers) and held the position of commander,US Strategic Command.
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 andAnatoly Levchenko. More information about the Buran space flight program and Soyuz-Savior, theSoyuz-spasatel program and its cosmonauts, who were trained to fly in space, can be found on the Buran program website.[11]
Collins would go on to be the first female shuttle pilot, the first female shuttle commander, and then commander of the second "Return to Flight" mission in 2005. The "Hairballs" nickname, according to Jones in his bookSky Walking, came after the group, the 13th NASA astronaut class, put a black cat on its group patch.
Beginning with this 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.
The second Canadian astronaut group were selected by CSA. McKay was selected as an alternate after Robert Stewart left the Canadian Space Agency program to accept a position at theUniversity of Calgary.[12] All the astronauts flew on the US Space Shuttle except Michael McKay, who resigned due to medical reasons.
Husband, Anderson and Chawla were crewmembers on the finalColumbia 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 aspace walk.
Brown, Clark and McCool were crewmembers on the finalColumbia 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 onSTS-121, was arrested on February 5, 2007, after confronting a woman entangled in alove 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).
In October 2003, Yang Liwei became the first man to be sent into space by thespace program of China, and his mission,Shenzhou 5, made the PRC the third country to independently send people into space.
In 2014, Chen Quan, Li Qinglong, Pan Zhanchun, Wu Jie and Zhao Chuandong retired from the corps due to age without having flown a mission.
This group includes Barbara Morgan, who was the backup "Teacher-In-Space" forChrista McAuliffe of the ill-fatedChallenger Disaster in 1986. While often referred to as an Educator Astronaut, Morgan was selected by NASA as a mission specialist before theEducator Astronaut Project was formed.[14]
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.
* 2003 marked the first group ofcommercial astronauts. Only Binnie and Melville reached space, during a SpaceShipOne flight. Siebold has also pilotedSpaceShipTwo, but no flights have yet reached space.
In 2006, four Malaysians were chosen to train for a flight to the International Space Station through theAngkasawan program. Sheikh Muszaphar became the first Malaysian in space when he flew aboardSoyuz TMA-11.
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.
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%).[22]
NASA selected the nine members of Group 20 from over 3500 applicants.[24] 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.
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)[29]
Ben Corbin, José Miguel Hurtado, Jr, Jason Reimuller, Todd Romberger,Erik Seedhouse, Alli Taylor
October 12 – TsPK-15/RKKE-17/RKKE-18 Cosmonaut Group(Russia)[30][31][32]
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,[34] then postponed until 2017.[35] In September 2016, the unit counted 31 astronauts.[36]
February 28 –Association of Spaceflight Professionals – Group3[37]
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)[38]
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.[48]
September 3 – Emirati Astronaut Group (United Arab Emirates)[49]
In 2018, Al Mansouri and Al Neyadi were announced as candidates to fly to the ISS on a Soyuz, as guest cosmonauts (Al Mansouri flew in 2019, with Al Neyadi 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.[50] Al Neyadi later flew onSpaceX Crew-6 in March 2023, being the first long duration Emirati Astronaut.
Privately funded by mission commander Isaacman, Inspiration 4 was the first all civilianorbital spaceflight mission and the first human orbital spaceflight not funded by a nation state. 2021's Inspiration4 also made the highest human orbit of the 21st century. Other mission accomplishments of note: Mission pilot Proctor became the first femalecommercial astronaut spaceship pilot and the first African American female spacecraft pilot, and medical officer Arceneaux became the first astronaut to fly with a prosthesis.[58][59]
April 10 – Emirati Astronaut Group 2 (United Arab Emirates)[50][60]
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.[72]
Boeing hired formerNASA astronautChris Ferguson to join the Space Exploration Team.[74] Candidates for Boeing's astronaut corps include former NASA astronauts, commercial scientist astronauts and test pilots who have never flown in space.[75][76]
SpaceX has employed former NASA astronauts but did not select any SpaceX employees to fly its commercial vehicles to the International Space Station.[citation needed]
SpaceX's former medical director at SpaceX,Anil Menon, is now a NASA astronaut selected in 2021 as a member ofNASA Astronaut Group 23.
SpaceX employeeSarah Gillis (Senior Space Operations Engineer) and former employeeAnna Menon (Lead Space Operations Engineer) were selected to participate in the privatePolaris Dawn mission as a part ofPolaris Program. Anna Menon is now a NASA astronaut candidate selected in 2025 as a member ofNASA Astronaut Group 24.
The world's first commercial astronaut corps,[citation needed] the Association of Spaceflight Professionals received funding[citation needed] for a series of crewed spaceflight missions through the NASA Flight Opportunities Program[citation needed] 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.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][relevant to this section? –discuss]
TheTeachers in Space program began in 2005. In 2012, theUnited 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).[90] Informal educator and aerospace historian Gregory Kennedy was among those listed.[91]
Mars One was a private initiative with claims to establish a permanent human colony onMars by 2023. The project was led by Dutch entrepreneurBas 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.[92] 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.[93] Unverified rumors claimed that Mars One was a scam designed to take as much money as possible from donors, including those participating as contestants.[94][95]
In February 2019, it was reported that Mars One had declaredbankruptcy in aSwiss court on January 15, 2019, and was permanently dissolved as a company.[96][97][98]
The first private firm that tried to build a suborbital space rocket,Truax Engineering, selected company employee, engineer and lifelong aviatorJeana Yeager as the first test pilot for its rocket. The project was halted in 1991 due to lack of funds.[104]
^"米田あゆ・諏訪理の宇宙飛行士認定について" [Regarding the certification of Ayu Yoneda and Satoshi Suwa as astronauts].JAXA (Press release) (in Japanese). October 22, 2024. Retrieved2024-12-24. [The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been conducting basic astronaut candidate training for astronaut candidate Ayu Yoneda since April 2023, and astronaut candidate Makoto Suwa since July 2023. The two astronaut candidates have now completed all basic training items...]
^Messier, Doug, ed. (24 February 2015)."Project PoSSUM Graduates First Class of Scientist-Astronauts".Parabolic Arc (Press release). Daytona Beach, Fl.: Project PoSSUM.Archived from the original on 11 January 2023.The project evolved from the Noctilucent Cloud Imagery and Tomography experiment, selected by NASA's Flight Opportunities Program in March 2012 as experiment 46-S. PoSSUM is managed by Integrated Spaceflight Services under principal investigator Jason Reimuller, Vice President and COO, Association of Spaceflight Professionals.
^The PoSSUM Campaign: Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere. Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.Southwest Research Institute. "PoSSUM will optimize the opportunity created by the "PMC Imagery and Tomography Experiment", a high-latitude campaign selected by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program (Experiment 46-S) to study the small-scale dynamics of PMCs (polar mesospheric clouds). The PoSSUM Project will make full use of the 46-S opportunity by fully utilizing all available payload space and campaign deployment time to optimize technology maturation and science return while validating a repeatable, low-cost means to study seasonal trends of PMCs."
^NASA.About NASA Flight Opportunities. nasa.gov. "The Flight Opportunities program within the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) strategically invests in the growth of the commercial spaceflight market by providing flight opportunities to test space exploration and utilization technologies on commercially available suborbital flight platforms." NASA. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
This article incorporatespublic domain material from websites or documents of theNational Aeronautics and Space Administration.
