NASA astronauts (and Artemis partners)

NASA astronauts

Space dashboard

An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον (astron), meaning ‘star’, and ναύτης (nautes), 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 reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.

“Astronaut” technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality. Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin “tàikōng” (太空), meaning “space”), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China, the People’s Liberation Army Astronaut Corps astronauts and their foreign counterparts are all officially called hángtiānyuán (航天员, meaning “heaven navigator” or literally “heaven-sailing staff”).

Astronauts 1961-1972

Country	Spacecraft	Launching date	Astronauts	Revolutions	Flight time	Flight highlights
R	Vostok 1	12-4-1961	Gagarin	1	1 hr. 48 mins.	First manned flight.
US	Mercury-Redstone 3	5-5-1961	Shepard	Sub-orbinal	15 mins.	First American in space.
US	Mercury-Redstone 4	21-7-1961	Grissom	Sub-orbinal	16 mins.	Capsule sank.
R	Vostok 2	6-8-1961	Titov	16	25 hrs. 18 mins.	More than 24 hours in space
US	Mercury-Atlas 6	20-2-1962	Glenn	3	4 hrs. 55 mins.	First American in orbit.
US	Mercury-Atlas 7	24-5-1962	Cartenter	3	4 hrs. 56 mins.	Landed 250 miles from target.
R	Vostok 3	11-8-1962	Nikolayev	60	94 hrs. 22 mins.	First group flight. (Vostok 3 and 4)
R	Vostok 4	12-8-1962	Popovich	45	70 hrs. 57 mins.	Came within 3.1 miles of Vostok 3 on first orbit.
US	Mercury-Atlas 8	3-10-1962	Schirra	6	9 hrs. 13 mins.	Landed 5 miles from target.
US	Mercury-Atlas 9	15-5-1963	Cooper	22	34 hrs. 20 mins.	First long flight by an American.
R	Vostok 5	14-6-1963	Bykovsky	76	119 hrs. 06 mins.	Second group flight. (Vostok 5 and 6)
R	Vostok 6	16-6-1963	Tereshkova	45	7 hrs. 50 mins.	Passed within 3 miles of Vostok 5; first moman in space.
R	Voskhod 1	12-10-1964	Komarov, Feoktiskov, Yegorov	15	24 hrs. 17 mins.	First 3-man craft.
R	Voskhod 2	18-3-1965	Leonov, Belyayev	16	26 hrs. 02 mins.	First man outside spacecraft in 10-minute “walk”. (Leonov).
US	Gemini 3	23-3-1965	Grissom, Young	3	4 hrs. 53 mins.	First manned orbital maneuvers.
US	Gemini 4	3-6-1965	McDivitt, White	62	97 hrs. 48 mins.	21-minute “spacewalk” (White).
US	Gemini 5	21-8-1965	Cooper, Conrad	120	190 hrs. 56 mins.	First extended manned flight.
US	Gemini 7	4-12-1965	Borman, Lovell	206	330 hrs. 35 mins.	Longest space flight.
US	Gemini 6-A	15-12-1965	Schirra, Stafford	16	25 hrs. 52 mins.	Rendezvous within 1 foot of Gemini 7.
US	Gemini 8	16-3-1966	Armstrong, Scott	6,5	10 hrs. 42 mins.	First docking to Agena target; mission cut short.
US	Gemini 9-A	3-6-1966	Stafford, Cernan	44	75 hrs. 21 mins.	Rendezvous, extra-vehicular activity, precision landing.
US	Gemini 10	18-7-1966	Young, Collins	43	70 hrs. 47 mins.	Rendezvous with 2 targets; Agena package retrieved.
US	Gemini 11	12-9-1966	Conrad, Gordon	44	74 hrs. 17 mins.	Rendezvous and docking.
US	Gemini 12	11-11-1966	Lovell, Aldrin	59	94 hrs. 33 mins.	3 successful extra-vehicular trips.
R	Soyuz 1	23-4-1967	Kamarov	17	26 hrs. 40 mins.	Heaviest manned craft; crashed killing Kamarov.
US	Apollo 7	11-10-1968	Schirra, Eisele, Walter	163	260 hrs. 09 mins.	First manned flight of Apollo spacecraft.
R	Soyuz 3	26-10-1968	Beragovoi	60	94 hrs. 51 mins.	Rendezvous with manned Soyuz 2
US	Apollo 8	21-12-1968	Borman, Lovell, Anders	Lunar orbital 10	147 hrs. 00 mins.	First manned voyage around the moon.
R	Soyuz 4	15-1-1969	Shatalov	45	71 hrs. 14 mins.	Rendezvous with Soyuz 5.
R	Soyuz 5	15-1-1969	Volynov, Teliseyev, Khrunov	46	72 hrs. 46 mins.	Rendezvous with Soyuz 4; Yeliseyev and Khrunov trandfer to Soyuz 4.
US	Apollo 9	3-3-1969	McDivitt, Scott, Schweickart	151	241 hrs. 01 mins.	Low earth orbit, docking with Lunar Module (LM).
US	Apollo 10	18-5-1969	Stafford, Cernan, Young	Lunar orbital 31	192 hrs. 03 mins.	Descent to within 9 miles of moon.
US	Apollo 11	16-7-1969	Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins	Lunar orbital 31	195 hrs. 18 mins.	Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. Time spent on moon 21 hrs. 38 mins.
US	Apollo 12	14-11-1969	Conrad, Bean, Gordon	Lunar orbital 45	244 hrs. 36 mins.	Living and working on the moon. ALSEP station instruments.
US	Apollo 13	11-4-1970	Lovell, Haise, Swigert	Lunar orbital 01	142 hrs. 54 mins.	Blast oxygen tank, did not land on the moon.
US	Apollo 14	31-1-1971	Shepard, Mitchell, Roosa	Lunar orbital 34	216 hrs. 02 mins.	Long walk on the moon, wheelbarrow.
US	Apollo 15	25-7-1971	Scott, Irwin, Worden	Lunar orbital 74	295 hrs. 11 mins.	Focus on science, lunar vehicle.
US	Apollo 16	16-4-1972	Young, Duke, Mattingly	Lunar orbital 64	265 hrs. 51 mins.	Extended stay on the moon, lunar vehicle.
US	Apollo 17	7-12-1972	Cernan, Schmitt, Evans	Lunar orbital 75	301 hrs. 51 mins.	Longest crewed lunar landing mission (12 days 14 hours), greatest distance from a spacecraft during an extravehicular activity of any type (7.6 kilometers (4.7 mi)), longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours 4 minutes), largest lunar sample return (approximately 115 kg or 254 lb), longest time in lunar orbit (6 days 4 hours), and most lunar orbits (75). Cernan last Apollo astronaut on the moon (14-12-1972).

Astronaut team (2022)

Team

Chief Astronaut: Reid Wiseman.
42 active astronauts, 10 candidate astronauts.

Training

Landing vertical (navy helicopter).
Landing in snow (navy helicopter).
Southpole at the Moon and Mars with weird sun-angles (VR).
Geology (Mars geology time-scale and collecting samples) (Iceland).
Space training (ISS).
Moon and Mars surface (swimmingpool).
Orion (Crew Trainer at JSC).

Artemis I (16-11-2022)

Male torso called Commander Moonikin Campos. In commander’s seat to provide data on what crew members may experience in flight. In Orion Crew Survival System suit. Named after a key player in bringing Apollo 13 safely back to Earth. Arturo Campos was an electrical engineer who developed a plan to provide the command module with enough electrical power to navigate home safely after an oxygen tank aboard the service module of the Apollo spacecraft ruptured. Commander Moonikin Campos is outfitted with sensors to provide data on what crew members may experience in flight, continuing Campos’ legacy of enabling human exploration in deep space.
Female torso called Helga. To measure radiation. Without radiation protection vest.
Female torso called Zohar. To measure radiation. With radiation protection vest (AstroRad).

Artemis II (2024)

03-04-2023 NASA reveals the crew for Artemis II. NASA announced that former U.S. Navy fighter pilots Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, veteran space station astronaut Christina Koch, and rookie Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will crew the Artemis 2 mission to fly around the far side of the moon as soon as late next year (2024), a test flight that will carry the foursome farther from Earth than any humans in history.
01-07-2023 Start training (18 months). Kick-off by Charles Duke (Apollo 16). All of these astronauts were born after Charles Duke’s landing on the moon in 1972.
02-07-2023 First lessons: Lunar orbital mechanics (for Earth horizon navigation).

Reid Wiseman, commmander, USA
Victor Glover, pilot, USA
Christina Koch, mission specialist, USA
Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist, Canada

Artemis III (Moon landing)

t.b.a.

Artemis IV (09-2028)

ESA Astronaut, t.b.a. Alexander Gerst (Germany)?

Artemis V (09-2029)

ESA Astronaut t.b.a. Thomas Pesquet (France)?

Footnote

Sources: Space dashboard, Aerospace history, funkystuff.org
Outgoing: NASA
Keywords: Artemis astronauts, crew