NASA will take an extra month to whittle down its approximately 400 Highly Qualified applicants to the 100 or so it plans to interview. That's what I infer from from the latest update to the Astronaut Candidate Selection Process Timeline. Interviewees will now be brought to JSC through January instead of December, with finalists determined by February and the new ASCAN class announced by June. These changes are noted by the red color in the updated table below. The report date for the Astronaut Candidate Class of 2013 remains August 2013. Good luck, everyone!
Qualified Applications reviewed to determine Highly Qualified applicants. Qualifications Inquiry form sent to Supervisors / References and civilian applicants contacted by mail to obtain an FAA medical exam.
August-December 2012
Highly Qualified applications reviewed to determine Interviewees.
October 2012-January 2013
Interviewees brought to JSC for preliminary interview, medical evaluation, and orientation. Interviewees will be selected from the Highly Qualified group and contacted on a week-by-week basis.
February 2013
Finalists determined.
February-April 2013
Finalists brought to JSC for additional interview and complete medical evaluation.
June 2013
Astronaut Candidate Class of 2013 announced
August 2013
Astronaut Candidate Class of 2013 reports to the Johnson Space Center.
Here is a fun piece of trivia for you. Who completed the first triathlon in space, and when? The answer is that Sunita Williams completed the Nautica Malibu Triathlon from her perch on the ISS last weekend on September 16. She used the station's stationary cycle and treadmill for the bike and run portions. Since there is no swimming pool on the orbiting outpost, Williams simulated the swim portion with some strength training exercise equipment. This isn't her first time as a virtual racer. You may recall that she ran the Boston Marathon from the ISS back in 2007. Here is the video coverage from NASA TV:
Brian, love coming to your site for updates. I come here before going to NASA's websites to get ASCAN info. Appreciate all of this, please keep it up!
Anonymous said…
Brian-
Since you have applied to be an astronaut, you may know the answer to this question.
Can you only apply to be an astronaut when NASA issues an official call, like what happened last December? Or can you apply at any time?
I saw that in some of the current astronaut bios - some of them applied 30 times or more! That would not be possible on an every 4 year time scale since these people are still in their late 30s.
Kris, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, NASA accepted rolling applications and made selections approximately every two years. In 2000, NASA shifted to an approximately 4-year interval between selections. Starting in 2004, they shifted their application procedure from being paper-based to being online and stopped taking the rolling applications.
While NASA wraps up interviewing the second group of finalists to determine its 2013 class of ASCANs, the head of the NASA Astronaut Selection Office Duane Ross gave an illuminating presentation at JSC last Thursday about the selection process. He covered questions ranging from academic degrees to interview questions, medical screening, and Russian language requirements. Pete Dimmick was among those present in the audience. Here are his notes from the event, reprinted with permission: Today I attended a lecture by Duane Ross and his protege, Anne Roemer. Duane has been the head of the astronaut selection process for 37 years and I had a few minutes to speak with them after the lecture was over. Here is what I found out about becoming an astronaut. I won't discuss so much the published requirements, rather I'll be focusing more on the insider things. There have been 257 NASA astronauts over the years and an applicant has a 0.6% chance of being selected. Of those no
--> Please note that this comparison from 2008 is no longer currently applicable to the current programs offered by ISU and UND. An updated post comparing programs in 2014 is coming very soon! I've been getting a lot of questions lately about the similarities and differences between the International Space University (ISU) and University of North Dakota (UND) space studies masters programs. As someone who has been a student in both universities (ISU SSP '05 and UND MS '10), I am in a good position to compare them. Note that although I was accepted into the ISU masters program, I decided to only attend their Summer Session Program (SSP) instead, so my firsthand ISU perspective is from the SSP rather than the masters. Over a year has passed since I blogged about my decision to join the UND Space Studies distance program. At the halfway point, I can report that I am overall quite happy with it so far. Before getting started, I'd like to thank the folks at
In my continuing quest to become an astronaut, I wanted to figure out what the "typical" astronaut's background is like, so I mined the NASA astronaut bios for information. I was interested in the educational, military, selection age, and spaceflight histories of the astronauts, so I focused on that information. I think the plots below speak for themselves, but if you'd like the raw data or have questions, please feel free to ask. Note that I only compiled information on NASA's 126 active and management astronauts. I didn't include the Payload Specialists, former, or international astronauts, although I might go back later and add them to the analysis. I learned that only 36% of astronauts have earned doctorate degrees, but most of the astronauts selected with only a masters or bachelors had extensive NASA and/or military experience. The typical astronaut has one bachelors and one masters degree, although some do have more than one of either type of de
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Since you have applied to be an astronaut, you may know the answer to this question.
Can you only apply to be an astronaut when NASA issues an official call, like what happened last December? Or can you apply at any time?
I saw that in some of the current astronaut bios - some of them applied 30 times or more! That would not be possible on an every 4 year time scale since these people are still in their late 30s.
Thanks,
Kris