Los Angeles, Feb. 12 (CNA) A Taiwan-born American astronaut has been assigned to serve as commander of the ‘Crew Dragon’ spacecraft that will fly to the International Space Station next year, marking its second voyage in space, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced Friday.
Kjell Lindgren, 48, will command the fourth rotational flight of the craft’s crew to be launched in 2022 from a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said in a statement. press release.
According to NASA, it will be Lindgren’s second voyage to space, after spending 141 days on the space station in 2015 for Expeditions 44 and 45.
Part of a United States Air Force family, Lindgren was born in Taipei to a Swedish-American father and Taiwanese mother, and spent two and a half years in Taiwan before moving to England and eventually the U.S. became. school at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia.
Lindgren has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the US Air Force Academy, a master’s degree in cardiovascular physiology from Colorado State University and a medical degree from the University of Colorado.
Before being selected as an astronaut in 2009, he was a flight surgeon supporting space shuttle and space station missions. In December 2020, NASA named him one of the Artemis team of astronauts that helped pave the way for NASA’s upcoming lunar missions.
Part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the 2022 mission is partnering with the U.S. aerospace industry as companies develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of deploying crews in low Earth orbit and space station.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX built the “Crew Dragon” to transport astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s plan to delegate space station flights to private companies.
Meanwhile, NASA has also announced that Bob Hines, 46, will serve as the spacecraft’s pilot for the 2022 mission. Additional crew members will be assigned as mission specialists in the future by the agency’s international partners, it added.