Indian-American Raja Chari figures among the three astronauts who have been selected by the American space research agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the crew members for SpaceX Crew-3 mission.
The three crew members, whose names were announced on Monday, will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in the fall of 2021.
.@NASA_Astronauts Tom Marshburn & Raja Chari, and Matthias Maurer of @ESA, will fly to the @Space_Station on NASA's @SpaceX Crew-3 mission, expected to launch in fall 2021. It'll be the 1st spaceflight for Chari & Maurer, and the 3rd for Marshburn: https://t.co/R27cm1FJJ3 pic.twitter.com/OXiegomXUS
— NASA (@NASA) December 14, 2020Advertisement
This will be the first-ever spaceflight for Raja Chari who became NASA astronaut in 2017. Earlier in 2017, Chari was selected as a member of the Artemis team and is now eligible for assignment to a future lunar mission.
The two other astronauts, Tom Marshburn, who is a North Carolina native, became an astronaut in 2004 and Matthias Maurer, who is a German European Space Agency astronaut, has never been in a space program before.
Marshburn is a veteran who has had two spaceflights experience to the International Space Station before this mission. "The Crew-3 mission will be his third visit to the space station and his second long-duration mission. Marshburn previously served as a crew member of STS-127 in 2009 and Expedition 34/35, which concluded in 2013," the NASA said.
This will be the fourth flight with astronauts including the Demo-2 test flights, to the space station through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
It will become the third crew rotation mission for SpaceX’s human space transportation system.
