LOS ANGELES, FEBRUARY 12 (CNA) A Taiwanese-born US astronaut has been appointed to serve as commander of the Crew Dragon spacecraft that will fly to the International Space Station next year, making its second trip to space. , the National Aeronautics, indicates. and Space Administration (NASA) announced Friday.
The 48-year-old Kjell Lindgren will lead the fourth rotating flight of the spacecraft that will start in 2022 from a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A in NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said in a press release.
This will be Lindgren’s second trip to space, after a 141-day stay at the space station in 2015 for Expeditions 44 and 45, according to NASA.
Lindgren is part of an American Air Force family and was born in Taipei as a Swedish-American father and a Taiwanese mother. He spent two and a half years in Taiwan before moving to England and eventually to the US, where he finished high. school at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia.
Lindgren holds 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.
Prior to being selected as an astronaut in 2009, he was an aviation surgeon supporting spacecraft and space station missions. In December 2020, NASA named him as one of the Artemis team of astronauts who helped pave the way for NASA’s upcoming lunar missions.
The 2022 mission will be part of NASA’s commercial crewing program, which will work with the U.S. aerospace industry as companies develop and manage a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems that can carry crew to a 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 also announced that Bob Hines, 46, will serve as a spacecraft pilot for the 2022 mission. Additional crew members will in future be designated as mission specialists by the agency’s international partners.