Meet the SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts launching to the ISS on March 1

Four new astronauts are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Friday as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission.

Team-8the eighth operational commercial crewed mission for NASA, will lift off at 12:04 am EST (0504 GMT) on March 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida using the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft, perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket game. The IS Team Dragon Spacecraft will then dock with the orbiting laboratory the next day around 7 a.m. EST (0200 GMT).

The team includes NASA astronauts Matthew Dominic (commander), Michael Barratt (pilot) and Jeanette Epps (mission specialist) as well as mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Over his six month stay i spacethe astronauts will perform more than 200 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations, including research that will support human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

Related: SpaceX rolls out rocket, capsule for Crew-8 astronaut launch (photos)

Friday’s launch will be the first for all crew members except Barrett, who will be making his third flight and second long stay on the space station. You can learn more about each of them below.

Matthew Dominic (NASA)

a man wearing a blue suit sits in a white room with black furniture. He is smiling.

Crew-8 commander Matthew Dominick is a 42-year-old US Navy test pilot who joined NASA as astronaut candidate in 2017. Dominick has more than 1,600 flight hours in 28 aircraft, 400 carrier-capture landings and 61 combat missions on his resume. When Dominick was selected as an astronaut candidate in June 2017, he was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) serving in the US Navy as a naval aviator and department head of Strike Fighter Squadron 115.

Dominick was born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, where his parents still live today. He is married to Faith Dominick, with whom he shares two daughters, according to a biography from NASA. Dominick holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of San Diego with minors in physics and mathematics. After graduating in 2005, he was commissioned through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and attended Basic Flight Training at Naval Air Station Pensacola. He was commissioned a naval aviator in 2007.

He completed F/A-18 Super Hornet training and then served two deployments with Strike Fighter Squadron 143 (VFA-143) before attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he earned a Master of Science in systems engineering . He later graduated from the US Navy Test Pilot School and was assigned to Air Test Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23), where he was the development flight test project officer for a variety of carrier suitability test programs. After completing two years of training as astronaut candidate in 2019, Dominick is now an active duty US Navy astronaut. While awaiting his chance to fly in space, he was also promoted to Fleet Commander in 2020.

Michael Barratt (NASA)

a man wearing a blue suit sits in a white room with black furniture. his elbow is resting on a table.

Crew-8 pilot Michael Barratt is a 64-year-old doctor who specializes in aerospace medicine. He served as a flight surgeon for NASA before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 2000. Barratt played a key role in the development of NASA’s space medicine initiatives for both the Shuttle-Mir Program and the Shuttle-Mir Program. International Space Station (ISS).

Barratt was born in Vancouver, Washington, but considers Camas, Washington, his hometown. He holds a Doctor of Medicine degree from Northwestern University and is board certified in internal and aerospace medicine. He is married to Dr. Michelle Lynne Sasynuik and they have five children, according to a official biography.

Barratt has spent a total of 212 days in space over two previous space flights, including Expedition 19/20 in 2009 – which saw the transition from three to six permanent ISS crew members – and STS-133 in 2011, nearing the end of NASA. The space plane program. Barratt served as Flight Engineer for Expedition 19/20 and flew two spacewalks during this mission. The long-duration flight mission involved teams studying bone loss, cardiac atrophy, changes in the immune system and nutritional dynamics in microgravity. STS-133, the final Space Shuttle Discovery mission, delivered the Permanent Multipurpose Module and the fourth Express Logistics Carrier to the space station.

Barratt managed the Human Research Program at NASA Johnson Space Center from January 2012 to April 2013 and has provided expertise on human factors and space medical risks for newly developed space vehicles to the Commercial Crew and the Artemis Program.

Jeanette J. Epps (NASA)

a woman in a blue dress staring up into the distance excitingly. she is standing in a white room with many glass panels.

Jeanette Epps, Crew-8 mission specialist, was selected as an astronaut candidate in 2009. Before joining NASA, she worked at Ford Motor Co. and with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The 53-year-old is from Syracuse, New York and holds a Bachelor of Science in physics from LeMoyne College and a Masters of Science and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park. As a NASA Fellow during graduate school, Epps wrote a number of journal and conference articles that she believes were cited NASA biography.

During her time at Ford Motor Company, she received a provisional patent and a US patent for her research. She later worked as a technical intelligence officer for the CIA. Since becoming an astronaut, she has served on the Joint General Operations Panel working on space station crew efficiency, as a crew support astronaut for two missions and as lead capsule communicator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Epps was previously assigned to NASA Boeing Starliner-1 mission, but was reassigned due to delays in mission development, making Crew-8 her first spaceflight. During the upcoming mission, she will help monitor the spacecraft for launch and re-entry.

Alexander Grebenkin (Roscosmos)

a man in a blue suit staring up into the distance. He sits in a white room with many glass panels.

Alexander Sergeyevich Grebenkin, Team-8mission specialist, he served in the Air Force of the Russian Armed Forces before enlisting Roscosmos as a cosmonaut candidate in 2018.

Grebenkin graduated from the Irkutsk Military Aviation Academy in Irkutsk, Russia, with a major in the engineering, maintenance and repair of aircraft radio navigation systems. The 41-year-old also holds a degree in radio communications, broadcasting and television from the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics, according to a statement from NASA.

During his time in the Russian Armed Forces, Grebenkin worked as an aircraft readiness technician and aircraft preparation engineer, later serving as the head of a military unit regulation and repair group. Since he became a cosmonaut, he participated in fake missions World, with Crew-8 representing its first spaceflight. He will serve as a flight engineer during Voyager 70/71 on the space station.