WASHINGTON, March 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As a part of NASA’s SpaceX Group-11 undertaking, 4 workforce participants from 3 range companies will origination within the coming months to the Global Field Station for a long-duration science expedition boarded the orbiting laboratory.
NASA astronauts Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) astronaut Project Specialist Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Project Specialist Oleg Platonov will connect workforce participants boarded the range station disagree previous than July 2025.
NASA’s SpaceX Group-11 participants be on one?s feet throughout the Field Car Mockup Facility on the company’s Johnson Field Heart in Houston. From left are Project Specialist Kimiya Yui from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company), Commander NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Project Specialist Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, and Pilot NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. Credit score: NASA
The flying is the eleventh workforce rotation with SpaceX to the station as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The workforce will habits medical investigations and era demonstrations to assistance get ready people for life missions to the Moon, in addition to receive advantages society on Earth.
Cardman previously was assigned to NASA’s SpaceX Group-9 undertaking, and Fincke in the past was once assigned to NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 undertaking. NASA determined to reassign the astronauts to Group-11 in total help of deliberate actions boarded the Global Field Station. Cardman carries her enjoy coaching as a commander on Dragon spacecraft, and Fincke brings long-duration spaceflight enjoy to this workforce supplement.
Decided on as a NASA astronaut in 2017, Cardman will habits her first spaceflight. The Williamsburg, Virginia, local holds a bachelor’s level in Biology and a grasp’s in Marine Sciences from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. On the age of variety, she had begun pursuing a doctorate in Geosciences. Cardman’s analysis in geobiology and geochemical biking interested in subsurface environments, from caves to deep sea sediments. Since finishing preliminary coaching, Cardman has supported real-time station operations and lunar floor exploration making plans.
This will probably be Fincke’s fourth commute to the range station, having logged 382 days in range and 9 spacewalks throughout Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2008, and STS-134 in 2011, the general flying of range travel Endeavour. All through the moment decade, Fincke has carried out his experience to NASA’s Industrial Group Program, advancing the advance and checking out of the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner towards operational certification. The Emsworth, Pennsylvania, local is a outstanding graduate of the USA Wind Pressure Take a look at Pilot Faculty and holds bachelors’ levels from the Massachusetts Institute of Era, Cambridge, in each Aeronautics and Astronautics, in addition to Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. He additionally has a grasp’s level in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford College in California. Fincke is a retired U.S. Wind Pressure colonel with greater than 2,000 flying hours in additional than 30 other airplane.
With 142 days in range, this will probably be Yui’s 2nd commute to the range station. Nearest his variety as a JAXA astronaut in 2009, Yui flew as a flying engineer for Expedition 44/45 and become the primary Jap astronaut to seize JAXA’s H-II Switch Car. Along with developing a pristine experimental shape boarded Kibo, he performed a complete of 21 experiments for JAXA. In November 2016, Yui was once assigned as prominent of the JAXA Astronaut Crew. He graduated from the Faculty of Science and Engineering on the Nationwide Protection Academy of Japan in 1992. He nearest joined the Wind Self-Protection Pressure on the Japan Protection Company (these days Ministry of Protection). In 2008, Yui joined the Wind Team of workers Administrative center on the Ministry of Protection as a lieutenant colonel.
The Group-11 undertaking will probably be Platonov’s first spaceflight. Ahead of his variety as a cosmonaut in 2018, Platonov earned a point in Engineering from Krasnodar Wind Pressure Academy in Airplane Operations and Wind Site visitors Control. He additionally earned a bachelor’s level in Environment and Municipal Control in 2016 from the A ways Japanese Federal College in Vladivostok, Russia. Assigned as a take a look at cosmonaut in 2021, he has enjoy in piloting airplane, 0 gravity coaching, scuba diving, and desolate tract survival.
For greater than 20 years, society have lived and labored incessantly boarded the Global Field Station, advancing medical wisdom and demonstrating pristine applied sciences, making analysis breakthroughs now not conceivable on Earth. The station is a vital testbed for NASA to grasp and triumph over the demanding situations of long-duration spaceflight and to enlarge business alternatives in low Earth orbit. As business corporations center of attention on offering human range transportation products and services and locations as a part of a powerful low Earth orbit economy, NASA’s Artemis marketing campaign is underway on the Moon, the place the company is getting ready for life human exploration of Mars.
Be informed extra about NASA’s Industrial Group Program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
SOURCE NASA
