Hayley Arceneaux (born December 4, 1991) is an American

physician assistant A physician assistant or physician associate (PA) is a type of non-physician practitioner. While these job titles are used internationally, there is significant variation in training and scope of practice from country to country, and sometimes be ...

and

commercial astronaut A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately-funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while represe ...

. She joined billionaire

Jared Isaacman Jared Taylor Isaacman (born February 11, 1983) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, pilot, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder and Executive Chairman of Shift4, Shift4 Payments, a payment processor, and the founder of Draken Internati ...

on SpaceX's first private spaceflight

Inspiration4 Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) was a 2021 human spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Crew Dragon Resilience, ''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02: ...

, which launched on September 16, 2021, 00:02:56 UTC, and successfully water-landed local-time on Saturday, September 18. Arceneaux became the first human in space with a prosthetic leg bone after surviving

bone cancer A bone tumor is an neoplastic, abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as benign, noncancerous (benign) or malignant, cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body su ...

. At age 29, Arceneaux was the youngest American to travel to space, surpassed a few months later by 23-year-old Cameron Bess aboard Blue Origin NS-19. As Bess' flight was suborbital, Arceneaux is still the youngest American to have orbited the Earth.

Early life and education

Arceneaux was raised in

St. Francisville, Louisiana St. Francisville is a town in and the parish seat of West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,557 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area. History The current town of St. Fr ...

. Her father, Howard Stanford Arceneaux, died July 5, 2018, at the age of 60 years old. Her brother and sister-in-law are aerospace engineers. When she was 10 years old, her left knee began to ache. Her doctor thought it was just a sprain, but a few months later, tests revealed she had

osteosarcoma An osteosarcoma (OS) or osteogenic sarcoma (OGS) is a cancerous tumor in a bone. Specifically, it is an aggressive malignant neoplasm that arises from primitive transformed cells of mesenchyme, mesenchymal origin (and thus a sarcoma) and that exhi ...

, a type of bone cancer. Her family turned to

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research hospital headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on chi ...

for her treatment and care, which included around a dozen rounds of

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

, a limb-preservation surgery with knee replacement and placement of a

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

rod in her left thigh bone along with associated physical therapy. The experience inspired her to want to work with other cancer patients at St. Jude, which she does as a physician assistant working with

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

and

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). The name typically refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlarged lymph node ...

patients. Arceneaux graduated from St. Joseph's Academy in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...

, and obtained an undergraduate degree in Spanish in 2014. She obtained her

Physician Assistant A physician assistant or physician associate (PA) is a type of non-physician practitioner. While these job titles are used internationally, there is significant variation in training and scope of practice from country to country, and sometimes be ...

(PA) degree in 2016 from

LSU Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

Health in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...

Personal endeavors

Inspiration4 spaceflight

Arceneaux was described as the chief medical officer onboard

, a

private spaceflight Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA. During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pionee ...

funded by billionaire

. She has said she thinks she will be the first

Cajun The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the US state of Louisiana and surrounding Gulf Coast states. Whi ...

in space. She is the first person to launch with a prosthesis. As part of the training, she climbed

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier ( ), also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. The mountain is located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With an off ...

in Washington with the rest of the Inspiration4 crew. Arceneaux received the call sign "Nova" during training. Arceneaux is featured on the cover of a ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine double issue with the crew of Inspiration4 in August 2021. She is a member of the

Association of Space Explorers Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

Awards

*2003 Louisiana Young Heroes

Bibliography

*''Wild Ride: A Memoir of I.V. Drips and Rocket Ships'' - by Hayley Arceneaux - 2022 - *''Astronaut Hayley's Brave Adventure'' - by Hayley Arceneaux - 2025 -

References

External links

* SpaceFacts.de
Hayley Arceneaux
: Private Astronaut Biography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arceneaux, Hayley 1991 births Living people American astronauts People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana People from Memphis, Tennessee Space tourists Cajun people Inspiration4