NASA Astronaut Group 22 (nicknamed "The Turtles") is a group of twelve

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

selected in June 2017. They were joined by two

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

astronauts for training.

History

announced the creation of this astronaut group in November 2015 and accepted applications for astronaut hires from December 2015 through February 2016. A record number of applications - over 18,300 - were received. The final group of twelve selected candidates was publicly announced on June 7, 2017. The class was introduced at a press conference at the Johnson Space Center by U.S. Vice President

Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

. The ages of the seven men and six women ranged from 29 to 42 at the time of announcement. The Group 22 astronaut candidates arrived at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

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for training in August 2017, and when their approximately two-year-long training program was complete in January 2020, they became available for future missions. The group earned their "Turtles" nickname after experiencing flooding from

Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cy ...

shortly after arriving at NASA. The name was chosen by the preceding astronaut group, "The 8-Balls", according to NASA traditions. The first astronauts of this astronaut group to fly to space,

Raja Chari Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari (born June 24, 1977) is an American test pilot and NASA astronaut. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and has over 2,000 flyi ...

and Kayla Barron on

SpaceX Crew-3 SpaceX Crew-3 was the SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon's third NASA Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Crew operational flight, and its fifth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission successfully launched on 11 November 2021 at 02:03:31 Coordina ...

took a toy stuffed turtle as zero-g indicator to pay a tribute to their astronaut group.

Group members

* Kayla Barron (born 1987): Lt. Cmdr.,

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

**Mission specialist,

( Expedition 66/ 67) * Zena Cardman (born 1987): Biologist **Spacecraft commander, SpaceX Crew-11 ( Expedition 73/ 74) *

(born 1977): Col.,

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

**Spacecraft commander,

( Expedition 66/ 67) * Matthew Dominick (born 1981): Cmdr., U.S. Navy **Spacecraft commander,

SpaceX Crew-8 SpaceX Crew-8 was the eighth crewed operational NASA Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Crew flight and the 13th overall crewed orbital flight of a SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission launched on 4 March 2024. The Crew-8 miss ...

( Expedition 70/ 71/ 72) * Bob Hines (born 1975): Col., U.S. Air Force, NASA research pilot **Pilot,

SpaceX Crew-4 SpaceX Crew-4 was the SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon's fourth NASA Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Crew operational flight, and its seventh overall crewed orbital flight. The mission launched on 27 April 2022 at 07:52 UTC before docking with t ...

(

Expedition 67 Expedition 67 was the 67th List of International Space Station expeditions, long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The expedition began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-19 on 30 March 2022 with NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn ...

/ 68) * Warren Hoburg (born 1985): assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

**Pilot, SpaceX Crew-6 (

Expedition 68 Expedition 68 was the 68th List of International Space Station expeditions, long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The expedition began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-21 on 29 September 2022 with ESA astronaut Samantha Cris ...

/ 69) *

Jonny Kim Jonathan Yong "Jonny" Kim (born 5 February 1984) is an American astronaut with NASA, physician, United States Navy, U.S. Navy officer, flight surgeon, naval aviator, and former United States Navy SEALs, Navy SEAL. Born in Los Angeles to South ...

(born 1984): LCDR, U.S. Navy, physician, former U.S. Navy SEAL **Flight Engineer,

Soyuz MS-27 Soyuz MS-27 is a Russian crewed Soyuz spaceflight that launched on 8April 2025 from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, bound for the International Space Station. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying three crew mem ...

(

Expedition 72 Expedition 72 was the 72nd long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The expedition began with the departure of Soyuz MS-25 on 23 September 2024 with NASA astronaut Sunita Williams taking over the ISS command. It cont ...

/ 73) * Jasmin Moghbeli (born 1983): LtCol.,

U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionary ...

**Spacecraft commander, SpaceX Crew-7 ( Expedition 69/ 70) *

Loral O'Hara Loral Ashley O'Hara (born May 3, 1983) is an American engineer and NASA astronaut. Early life and education Loral Ashley O'Hara was born on May 3, 1983, in Houston, Texas, to Cindy and Steve O'Hara. She grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, where she at ...

(born 1983): research engineer,

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

**Flight Engineer, Soyuz MS-24 ( Expedition 69/ 70) * Francisco Rubio (born 1975): Maj.,

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

physician **Flight Engineer, Soyuz MS-22/ MS-23 (

/ 68/ 69) * Jessica Watkins (born 1988): postdoctoral fellow,

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

**Mission specialist,

(

/ 68)

Canadian partner astronauts

The U.S. astronauts trained alongside two Canadian astronaut candidates: * Joshua Kutryk (born 1982): LCol,

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Can ...

, test pilot, fighter pilot, engineer **Future flight, Boeing Starliner-1 * Jenni Sidey-Gibbons (born 1988): Mechanical engineer, combustion scientist, and lecturer **Backup mission specialist,

Artemis II Artemis II is a planned mission under the NASA-led Artemis program, set to be the second launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the first crewed flight of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft. Scheduled to launch in early 2026, ...

Former group member

* Robb Kulin (born 1983): Launch Chief Engineer,

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

– Resigned in August 2018 before completing his training.

References

External links

Turtles class nickname
{{NASA Astronaut Group 22 Lists of astronauts NASA Astronaut Corps 2017 in spaceflight 2017 establishments in the United States