List of astronauts by selection
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| 1958 1959 1960 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1976 |
| 1978 1979 1980 1982 1984 1985 1987 1990 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 2000 2003 2004 2006 |
[edit] 1958
June 25 - Man In Space Soonest - USA
- Neil Armstrong, Bill Bridgeman, Scott Crossfield, Iven Kincheloe, John B. McKay, Robert Rushworth, Joe Walker, Alvin White and Robert White.
- The first group of American astronaut candidates were selected for Man In Space Soonest, a U.S. Air Force project to beat the Soviets into space. While this group didn't wind up going into space when intended, Armstrong was eventually the first man to set foot on the moon. Several others became astronauts via the X-15 program.
[edit] 1959
April 9 - NASA Group 1 - Mercury Seven - USA
- The "Mercury Seven" were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.
- Though commonly considered to be the first group, the second group of American astronauts was selected for Project Mercury by NASA in April 1959. All seven were military test pilots, a requirement specified by President Eisenhower to simplify the selection process. All seven eventually flew in space, although one, Deke Slayton, did not fly a Mercury mission due to a medical disqualification, instead flying later on the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The other six each flew one Mercury mission. For two of these, Scott Carpenter and John Glenn, the Mercury mission was their only flight in the Apollo era (Glenn later flew on the Space Shuttle). Three of the Mercury astronauts, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper and Wally Schirra, also each flew a mission during the Gemini program. Alan Shepard was slated to fly Mercury 10 before its cancellation and was the original commander for the Gemini 3 mission, but did not fly due to a medical disqualification. After surgery to correct the problem, he later flew as commander of Apollo 14. He was the only Mercury astronaut to go to the Moon. Wally Schirra also flew on Apollo as commander of Apollo 7, as well as Mercury and Gemini, the only astronaut to fly on all three types of spacecraft. (Gus Grissom was scheduled to fly the first Apollo flight, but died in a fire on the launch pad during training.) Gordon Cooper was a backup commander for Apollo 10, the "dress rehearsal" flight for the lunar landing, and would have commanded another mission (likely to have been Apollo 13, according to the crew rotation), but was bumped from the rotation after a disagreement with NASA management.
[edit] 1960
March 7 - Air Force Group 1 - USSR
- The initial group of Soviet cosmonauts was chosen from Air Force jet pilots. The twenty, finalized on March 7, 1960, were: Ivan Anikeyev, Pavel Belyayev, Valentin Bondarenko, Valery Bykovsky, Valentin Filatyev, Yuri Gagarin, Viktor Gorbatko, Anatoli Kartashov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Vladimir Komarov, Aleksei Leonov, Grigori Nelyubov, Andrian Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, Mars Rafikov, Georgi Shonin, Gherman Titov, Valentin Varlamov, Boris Volynov, and Dmitri Zaikin.
April - Dyna-Soar Group 1 - USA
- In April 1960, seven men were secretly chosen for the Dyna-Soar program: Neil Armstrong (previously part of MISS), Bill Dana, Henry C. Gordon, Pete Knight, Russell L. Rogers, Milt Thompson, and James W. Wood. Armstrong and Dana left the program in the summer of 1962.
[edit] 1962
March 12 - Female Group - USSR
- On March 12, 1962, a group of five civilian women with parachuting experience was added to the cosmonaut group: Tatyana Kuznetsova, Valentina Ponomaryova, Irina Solovyova, Valentina Tereshkova, and Zhanna Yerkina. Only Tereshkova would fly.
September 17 - NASA Group 2 - The Next Nine (Also: The Nifty Nine, The New Nine) - USA
- A second group of nine astronauts was selected by NASA in September 1962. This group comprised Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, Jim McDivitt, Jim Lovell, Elliott See, Tom Stafford, Ed White and John Young.
- All of this group flew missions in the Gemini program except Elliott See, who died in a flight accident while preparing for the Gemini 9 flight. All of the others also flew on Apollo, except for Ed White, who died in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire. Three of this group, McDivitt, Borman and Armstrong, made single flights in both Gemini and Apollo. Four others, Young, Lovell, Stafford and Conrad, each made two flights in Gemini and at least one flight in Apollo. Young and Lovell both made two Apollo flights. Conrad and Stafford also made second flights in Apollo spacecraft, Conrad on Skylab 2 and Stafford in Apollo-Soyuz. Six of this group, Borman, Lovell, Stafford, Young, Armstrong and Conrad, made flights to the Moon. Lovell and Young went to the Moon twice. Armstrong, Conrad, and Young walked on the Moon. McDivitt was later Apollo Program Director and became the first general officer and would have been either the prime LM Pilot or backup commander for Apollo 14, but left NASA due to a conflict between Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. John Young also later flew on the Space Shuttle (STS-1 and STS-9) and would retire from NASA in 2004.
September 19 - Dyna-Soar Group 2 - USA
- On September 19, 1962, Albert Crews was added to the Dyna-Soar program and the names of the six active Dyna-Soar astronauts were announced to the public.
[edit] 1963
January 10 - Air Force Group 2 - USSR
- Yuri Artyukhin, Eduard Buinovski, Lev Demin, Georgi Dobrovolski, Anatoli Filipchenko, Aleksei Gubarev, Vladislav Gulyayev, Pyotr Kolodin, Eduard Kugno, Anatoli Kuklin, Aleksandr Matinchenko, Vladimir Shatalov, Lev Vorobyov, Anatoli Voronov, Vitali Zholobov
October 17 - NASA Group 3 - The Fourteen - USA
- Buzz Aldrin, William Anders, Charles Bassett, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Roger Chaffee, Michael Collins, Walter Cunningham, Donn Eisele, Theodore Freeman, Richard Gordon, Russell Schweickart, David Scott, Clifton Williams
- All of the third group (except those who died) flew on the Apollo program - Aldrin, Bean, Cernan and Scott walked on the Moon. Five of them (Aldrin, Cernan, Collins, Gordon and Scott) also flew missions during the Gemini program.
- Bassett, Chaffee, Freeman and Williams all died before they could fly in space - Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire, the others in plane crashes.
- During the Apollo program, (1961-1975), the United States launched a total of 31 missions carrying astronauts into space: 6 in the Mercury program, 10 in the Gemini program, 11 in the Apollo program, 3 in the Skylab program, and 1 in the Apollo-Soyuz Test program. These 31 missions provided 71 individual flight opportunities: 6 in Mercury, 20 in Gemini, 33 in Apollo, 9 in Skylab, and 3 in Apollo-Soyuz. These 71 positions were filled by 43 individuals. Of these 43, 4 flew a total of 4 flights, 3 flew a total of 3 flights, 10 flew twice, and the remaining 26 flew only once. Thus only 17 flew more than once, and only seven flew more than twice. (Several later made additional flights on the Space Shuttle.)
- Of the 31 Apollo-era flights, 2 were suborbital and 9 were lunar missions. The remaining 20 were earth orbital flights. The 9 lunar flights provided 27 individual lunar flight opportunities. These were filled by 24 individuals. Only 3 people flew to the Moon twice. The 6 successful lunar landing flights provided 12 individual lunar landing opportunities. These were filled by 12 individuals. No one landed on the Moon twice. Of those who landed on the Moon, 2 had already flown to the Moon once, 5 had made previous non-lunar flights, and 5 had no previous spaceflight experience.
- All 6 Mercury flights and 3 of 10 Gemini flights had all-rookie crews, as did 1 of the 3 Skylab flights. All the Apollo missions included at least 1 veteran astronaut. Only 2 flights, the lunar landing mission and its dress-rehearsal, had all-veteran crews.
[edit] 1964
January 25 - Air Force Group 2 Supplemental - USSR
May 26 - Voskhod Group (Medical Group 1) - USSR
- Vladimir Benderov, Georgi Katys, Vasili Lazarev, Boris Polyakov, Aleksei Sorokin, Boris Yegorov
June 11 - Civilian Specialist Group 1 - USSR
[edit] 1965
June 1 - Journalist Group 1 - USSR
- Yaroslav Golovanov, Yuri Letunov, Mikhail Rebrov
- In 1965, three civilian journalists were selected for cosmonaut training in preparation for flight on a Voskhod mission. When the Voskhod program was canceled, Golovanov and Letunov were dismissed. Rebrov, on the other hand, stayed with the space program as a journalist until 1974.
June 1 - Medical Group 2 - USSR
- Yevgeni Illyin, Aleksandr Kiselyov, Yuri Senkevich
- These physicians were selected for the long-duration Voskhod flights, all of which were subsequently canceled to make way for the Moon program. All three were dismissed at the beginning of the following year.
June 28 - NASA Group 4 - The Scientists - USA
- Graveline and Michel left NASA without flying in space. Schmitt walked on the Moon on Apollo 17. Garriott, Gibson and Kerwin all flew to Skylab. Garriott also flew on the Space Shuttle and was the first Amateur radio operator to operate from orbit.
October 28 - Air Force Group 3 - USSR
- Boris Belousov, Vladimir Degtyarov, Anatoli Fyodorov, Yuri Glazkov, Vitali Grishchenko, Veygeni Khludeyev, Leonid Kizim, Pyotr Klimuk, Gennadi Kolesnikov, Aleksandr Kramarenko, Mikhail Lisun, Aleksandr Petrushenko, Vladimir Preobrazhensky, Valeri Rozhdestvensky, Gennadi Sarafanov, Ansar Sharafutdinov, Vasili Shcheglov, Aleksandr Skvortsov, Eduard Stepanov, Valeri Voloshin, Oleg Yakovlev, Vyacheslav Zudov
- This group of cosmonauts was selected for participation in five separate Soyuz programmes that the USSR was running. These included military programs (with and without the Almaz/Salyut space stations) and two lunar programs (only one of which aimed at an actual lunar landing). In the end, only the orbital program and the space station program went ahead, and few of the cosmonauts from this group ever were given the chance to fly.
November - USAF MOL Group 1 - USA
- Michael J. Adams, Albert H. Crews Jr., John L. Finley, Richard E. Lawyer, Lachlan Macleay, Francis G. Neubeck, James M. Taylor, Richard H. Truly.
- This group was selected for training for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Of this group, only Richard Truly transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program and later flew on the Space Shuttle. Truly would later become the first astronaut to become NASA Administrator in 1989.
[edit] 1966
April 4 - NASA Group 5 - The Original 19 - USA
- Vance Brand, John S. Bull, Gerald Carr, Charles Duke, Joseph Engle, Ronald Evans, Edward Givens, Fred Haise, James Irwin, Don Lind, Jack Lousma, Ken Mattingly, Bruce McCandless II, Edgar Mitchell, William Pogue, Stuart Roosa, John Swigert, Paul Weitz, Alfred Worden.
- This group -- except John Bull, who left NASA; Edward Givens, who died; Joseph Engle, who was bumped from Apollo 17 for Harrison Schmitt; and Bruce McCandless and Don Lind, who were candidates for one of three canceled Apollo flights -- flew on all Apollo flights after Apollo 12. Fred Haise and John Swigert flew on Apollo 13, the latter replacing Ken Mattingly after he was scrubbed due to measles exposure although he later flew on Apollo 16. Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa both flew on Apollo 14 with Alan Shepard, while Alfred Worden and James Irwin flew with David Scott on Apollo 15. Charles Duke, who was CAPCOM for Apollo 11, flew on Apollo 16 with John Young and Mattingly, while Ron Evans served as Command Module Pilot with Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17. Paul Weitz, Jack Lousma, and William Pogue flew aboard Skylab on separate missions, while Vance Brand, a backup Skylab astronaut, flew aboard ASTP with Thomas Stafford and Deke Slayton in 1975. Joseph Engle and Fred Haise, in 1977, commanded crews on the Space Shuttle Enterprise landing tests, with Engle, Mattingly, Bruce McCandless, and Don Lind later flying actual Space Shuttle flights. Engle, with MOL transferee Richard H. Truly, would command the last all-rookie US spaceflight crew (STS-2) in November, 1981, as current NASA policy requires that the Shuttle commander be an experienced astronaut.
May 23 - Civilian Specialist Group 2 - USSR
- Sergei Anokhin, Vladimir Bugrov, Gennadi Dolgopolov, Georgi Grechko, Valeri Kubasov, Oleg Makarov, Vladislav Volkov, Aleksei Yeliseyev
June 30 - USAF MOL Group 2 - USA
- This group was selected for training for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. All transferred to NASA after the MOL program was canceled and all five flew on the Space Shuttle as pilot astronauts.
[edit] 1967
January 31 - Civilian Specialist Group 2 Supplemental - USSR
May 7 - Air Force Group 4 - USSR
- Vladimir Alekseyev, Vladimir Beloborodov, Mikhail Burdayev, Sergei Gaidukov, Vladimir Isakov, Vladimir Kovalyanok, Vladimir Kozelsky, Vladimir Lyakhov, Yuri Malyshev, Viktor Pisarev, Nikolai Porvatkin, Mikhail Sologub
May 22 - Academy of Sciences Group - USSR
- Mars Fathulin, Rudolf Gulyayev, Ordinard Kolomitsev, Vsevolod Yegorov, Valentin Yershov
June - USAF MOL Group 3 - USA
- James Abrahamson, Robert Herres, Robert H. Lawrence Jr, Donald Peterson.
- This group was selected for training for the US Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Lawrence was the first African-American to be chosen as an astronaut, but was killed in a jet accident before the MOL program was cancelled in 1969 (had Lawrence have not died, he would have been, if accepted by NASA, the first African-American astronaut for the agency, pre-dating Guinon Bluford by nine years). Peterson transferred to NASA in 1969 after the MOL cancellation and would fly on the Space Shuttle.
October 4 - NASA Group 6 - XS-11 (The Excess Eleven) - USA
- Joseph Allen, Philip Chapman, Anthony England, Karl Henize, Donald Holmquest, William B. Lenoir, John Llewellyn, Story Musgrave, Brian O'Leary, Robert Parker, William Thornton.
- This second group of scientist-astronauts was chosen to fly as backup crew members for the last three Apollo missions, or as backup crew members for Skylab. Except for Chapman, Holmquest, Llewellyn and O'Leary, the rest of this group flew as mission specialists during the Space Shuttle program, with Story Musgrave being the last one to retire in 1998.
[edit] 1968
May 27 - Civilian Specialist Group 3 - USSR
- Vladimir Fartushny, Viktor Patsayev, Valeri Yazdovsky
[edit] 1969
August 14 - NASA Group 7 - USA
- Karol Bobko, Robert Crippen, Gordon Fullerton, Henry Hartsfield, Robert Overmyer, Donald Peterson, Richard Truly.
- USAF MOL astronauts who transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program. All flew on early Space Shuttle flights.
September 10 - Civilian Engineer Group - USSR
- Anatoli Demyanenko, Valeri Makrushin, Dmitri Yuyukov
[edit] 1970
April 27 - Air Force Group 5 - USSR
- Anatoli Berezovoi, Aleksandr Dedkov, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Nikolai Fefelov, Valeri Illarianov, Yuri Isaulov, Vladimir Kozlov, Leonid Popov, Yuri Romanenko
[edit] 1971
February 25 - 1971 Scientific Group - USSR
- Gurgen Ivanyan
May - Shuguang Group 1970 - China
- Chai Hongliang, Dong Xiaohai, Du Jincheng, Fang Guojun, Hu Zhanzi, Li Shichang, Liu Chongfu, Liu Zhongyi, Lu Xiangxiao, Ma Zizhong, Meng Senlin, Shao Zhijian, Wang Fuhe, Wang Fuquan, Wang Quanbo, Wang Rongsen, Wang Zhiyue, Yu Guilin, Zhang Ruxiang
[edit] 1972
March 22 - Civilian Specialist Group 4 - USSR
- Boris Andreyev, Valentin Lebedev, Yuri Ponomaryov
March 22 - Medical Group 3 - USSR
- Georgi Machinski, Valeri Polyakov, Lev Smirenny
[edit] 1973
March 27 - Civilian Specialist Group 5 - USSR
- Vladimir Aksyonov, Vladimir Gevorkyan, Aleksandr Ivanchenkov, Valeri Romanov, Valery Ryumin, Gennady Strekalov
[edit] 1974
January 1 - Physician Group - USSR
- Zyyadin Abuzyarov
[edit] 1976
August 23 - Air Force Group 6 - USSR
- Leonid Ivanov, Leonid Kadenyuk, Nikolai Moskalenko, Sergei Protchenko, Yevgeni Saley, Anatoly Solovyev, Vladimir Titov, Vladimir Vasyutin, Alexander Volkov
November 25 - 1976 Intercosmos Group - USSR
- Miroslaw Hermaszewski, Zenon Jankowski, Sigmund Jähn, Eberhard Köllner, Oldrich Pelcak, Vladimír Remek
[edit] 1978
January 16 - NASA Group 8 - TFNG (Thirty-Five New Guys) - USA
- Pilots: Daniel Brandenstein, Michael Coats, Richard Covey, John Creighton, Robert Gibson, Frederick Gregory, Frederick Hauck, Jon McBride, Francis "Dick" Scobee, Brewster Shaw, Loren Shriver, David Walker, Donald Williams
- Mission specialists: Guion Bluford, James Buchli, John Fabian, Anna Fisher, Dale Gardner, David Griggs, Terry Hart, Steven Hawley, Jeffrey Hoffman, Shannon Lucid, Ronald McNair, Richard Mullane, Steven Nagel, George Nelson, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Rhea Seddon, Robert Stewart, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Norman Thagard, James van Hoften
- Due to the long delay between the last Apollo mission and the first flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981, few astronauts from the older groups stayed with NASA. Thus in 1978 a new group of 35 astronauts was selected after 9 years without new astronauts, including the first female astronauts, and also the first black astronaut Guion Bluford. Since then, a new group has been selected roughly every two years.
- Two different astronaut groups were formed: pilots and mission specialists. Additionally the shuttle program has payload specialists who are selected for a single mission and are not part of the astronaut corps - among them were mostly scientists, also a few politicians and many international astronauts.
- Of the first of the post-Apollo group, Sally Ride would become the first American woman in space (STS-7). Later, she would fly with Kathryn Sullivan on a Shuttle flight, in which Sullivan would become the first American woman to perform an EVA. Dr. Thagard, who flew with Ride on STS-7, would later become the first American to be launched on a Russian rocket (Soyuz TM-18 or "Mir-18") to the Mir space station, while Shannon Lucid would serve on the Mir for slightly over 6 months, breaking all American space duration records (both the Skylab 4 record and Thagard's) in 1996-97. Of this group, Scobee, Resnik, Onizuka, and McNair would perish in the Challenger Disaster. Of the astronauts chosen, only Steve Hawley, Shannon Lucid, and Anna Fisher still remain on active duty, while Robert Gibson and Rhea Seddon became the first active duty astronauts to marry (both are now retired). After the Challenger Disaster, Sally Ride would serve on both the Rogers Commission and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
March 1 - 1978 Intercosmos Group - USSR
- Aleksandr P. Aleksandrov, Dumitru Dediu, Jose Lopez Falcon, Bertalan Farkas, Maidarzhavyn Ganzorig, Zhugderdemidiyn Gurragcha, Georgi Ivanov, Bela Magyari, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, Dumitru Prunariu
May 1 - Payload Specialists - ESA
[edit] 1979
April 1 - 1979 Intercosmos Group - USSR
USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer - Group 1
- David M. Vidrine, Eric E. Sundberg, Malcolm W. Lydon, Paul A. Sefchek, Keith C. Wright, Gary E. Payton, John B. Watterson, Terry A. Higbee, Daryl J. Joseph, Jerry J. Rij, Michael A. Hamel, Jeffrey E. Detroye, Frank J. Casserino,
[edit] 1980
May 29 - NASA Group 9 - USA
- Pilots: John Blaha, Charles Bolden, Roy Bridges, Guy Gardner, Ronald Grabe, Bryan O'Connor, Richard Richards, Michael J. Smith
- Mission specialists: James Bagian, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Mary Cleave, Bonnie Dunbar, William Fisher, David Hilmers, David Leestma, John Lounge, Jerry Ross, Sherwood Spring, Robert Springer
- International mission specialists: Claude Nicollier, Wubbo Ockels
- Of this group, Franklin Chang-Diaz would become the first Hispanic-American in space, Michael Smith would perish in the Challenger Disaster, while John Blaha would fly aboard the Mir space station. Both Jerry Ross and Chang-Diaz currently jointly hold the record of number of manned spaceflights flown at seven.
[edit] 1982
December 1 - Payload Specialists - Germany
[edit] 1984
May 23 - NASA Group 10 - The Maggots - USA
- Pilots: Kenneth Cameron, John Casper, Frank Culbertson, Sidney Gutierrez, Blaine Hammond, Michael McCulley, James Wetherbee
- Mission specialists: James Adamson, Ellen Baker, Mark Brown, Sonny Carter, Marsha Ivins, Mark Lee, David Low, William Shepherd, Kathryn Thornton, Charles Veach
- Of this group, William Shepherd would become the commander of the first International Space Station crew (Expedition 1).
[edit] 1985
June 4 - NASA Group 11 - USA
- Mission specialists: Jerome Apt, Charles Gemar, Linda Godwin, Richard Hieb, Tamara Jernigan, Carl Meade, Pierre Thuot
- Thorne was killed in the crash of a private airplane before his first flight assignment.
July 19 - NASA Teacher in Space Program - USA
- Payload specialists: Christa McAuliffe, Barbara Morgan
- McAuliffe and Morgan were selected as the prime and backup Payload specialists for the STS-51-L mission in 1985, McAuliffe was killed in the Challenger Disaster 73 seconds after lift-off. Morgan would later become the first "Educator-Astronaut" in 1998, and has been assigned to the STS-118 mission slated for June, 2007, 21½ years after Challenger.
August 1 - 1985 NASDA Group - Japan
[edit] 1987
June 12 - NASA Group 12 - The GAFFers - USA
- Pilots: Andrew M. Allen, Kenneth Bowersox, Curtis Brown, Kevin Chilton, Donald McMonagle, William Readdy, Kenneth Reightler
- Mission specialists: Thomas Akers, Jan Davis, Michael Foale, Gregory Harbaugh, Mae Jemison, Bruce Melnick, Mario Runco, James Voss
- The group's informal nickname is an acronym for "George Abbey Final Fifteen". Of this group, Mae Jemison would become the first female African-American in space, while Michael Foale would fly aboard the Mir space station. At the time of the Columbia accident in 2003, William Readdy was Associate Administrator for Space Flight and Kenneth Bowersox was commanding the Expedition 6 crew on the ISS.
August 3 - 1987 Payload Specialists - Germany
- Renate Brümmer, Hans Schlegel, Gerhard Thiele, Heike Walpot, Ulrich Walter
[edit] 1990
January 17 - NASA Group 13 - The Hairballs - USA
- Pilots: Kenneth Cockrell, Eileen Collins, William G. Gregory, James Halsell, Charles Precourt, Richard Searfoss, Terrence Wilcutt
- Mission specialists: Daniel Bursch, Leroy Chiao, Michael Clifford, Bernard Harris, Susan Helms, Thomas David Jones, William McArthur, James Newman, Ellen Ochoa, Ronald Sega, Nancy Currie, Donald A. Thomas, Janice Voss
- Collins would go on to be the first female shuttle pilot and later the first female shuttle commander. The "Hairballs" nickname, according to Jones in his book "Sky Walking," came after the group, the 13th NASA astronaut class, put a black cat on its group patch.
October 8 - 1990 Germany
[edit] 1992
March 31 - NASA Group 14 - The Hogs - USA
- Pilots: Scott Horowitz, Brent Jett, Kevin Kregel, Kent Rominger
- Mission specialists: Daniel Barry, Charles Brady, Catherine Coleman, Michael Gernhardt, John Grunsfeld, Wendy Lawrence, Jerry Linenger, Richard Linnehan, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Scott Parazynski, Winston Scott, Steven Smith, Joseph Tanner, Andy Thomas, Mary Weber
- International mission specialists: Marc Garneau (Canada), Chris Hadfield (Canada), Maurizio Cheli (Italy), Jean-François Clervoy (France), Koichi Wakata (Japan)
- Beginning with this NASA Group, international astronauts representing their home country's space agencies were brought in and trained alongside their NASA counterparts as full-fledged mission specialists, eligible to be assigned to any shuttle mission.
April - 1992 NASDA Group - Japan
May 15 - ESA
- Maurizio Cheli (Italy), Jean-François Clervoy (France), Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Marianne Merchez (Belgium), Thomas Reiter (Germany)
[edit] 1994
December 12 - NASA Group 15 - The Flying Escargot - USA
- Pilots: Scott Altman, Jeffrey Ashby, Michael Bloomfield, Joe Edwards, Dominic Gorie, Rick Husband, Steven Lindsey, Pamela Melroy, Susan (Still) Kilrain, Frederick Sturckow
- Mission specialists: Michael Anderson, Robert Curbeam, Kalpana Chawla, Kathryn Hire, Janet Kavandi, Edward Lu, Carlos Noriega, James Reilly, Stephen Robinson
- International mission specialists: Jean-Loup Chrétien (France), Takao Doi (Japan), Michel Tognini (France), Dafydd Williams (Canada)
- Husband, Anderson, and Chawla were crewmembers on the final Columbia mission. Chrétien trained as a backup Spacelab crew member in the 1980's and flew on both U.S. and Soviet/Russian spacecraft, along with being the first non-U.S. or Soviet/Russian astronaut to perform an space walk.
[edit] 1995
1995 NASDA Group - Japan
[edit] 1996
February 9 - Cosmonaut Group MKS/RKKE-12 - Russia
- Oleg Kononenko, Oleg Kotov, Konstantin Kozeyev, Sergei Revin,Yuri Shargin
May 1 - NASA Group 16 - The Sardines - USA
- David Brown, Daniel Burbank, Yvonne Cagle, Fernando Caldeiro, Charles Camarda, Duane Carey, Laurel B. Clark, Michael Fincke, Patrick Forrester, Stephen Frick, John Herrington, Joan Higginbotham, Charles Hobaugh, James M. Kelly, Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly, Paul Lockhart, Christopher Loria, Sandra Magnus, Michael Massimino, Richard Mastracchio, William McCool, Lee Morin, Lisa Nowak, Donald Pettit, John Phillips, Mark Polansky, Paul Richards, Piers Sellers, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Daniel Tani, Rex Walheim, Peggy Whitson, Jeffrey Williams, Stephanie Wilson
- International mission specialists: Pedro Duque (Spain), Christer Fuglesang (Sweden), Umberto Guidoni (Italy), Steven MacLean (Canada), Mamoru Mohri (Japan), Soichi Noguchi (Japan), Julie Payette (Canada), Philippe Perrin (France), Gerhard Thiele (Germany)
- Brown, Clark, and McCool were crewmembers on the final Columbia mission. Mark and Scott Kelly are twin brothers, James Kelly is not related. Loria resigned from his shuttle mission due to injury and never flew before retiring from the astronaut corps. Nowak, who flew on STS-121, was arrested on February 5, 2007 after confronting a woman entangled in a love triangle with a fellow astronaut. She was dismissed by NASA on March 6, the first astronaut to be both grounded and dismissed (prior astronauts who were grounded due to non-medical issues usually resigned or retired).
October - China Group 1996 - China
[edit] 1997
Israel
- Yitzhak Mayo, Ilan Ramon
- Ramon was a Payload Specialist on the final Columbia mission.
[edit] 1998
January - Chinese Group 1 - China
- Chen Quan, Deng Qingming, Fèi Jùnlóng, Jing Haipeng, Liu Boming, Liu Wang, Niè Hǎishèng, Pan Zhanchun, Yang Liwei, Zhai Zhigang, Zhang Xiaoguan, Zhao Chuandong
June 4 - NASA Group 17 - The Penguins - USA
- Pilots: Lee Archambault, Christopher Ferguson, Kenneth Ham, Gregory C. Johnson, Gregory H. Johnson, William Oefelein, Alan Poindexter, George Zamka
- Mission Specialists: Clayton Anderson, Tracy Caldwell, Gregory Chamitoff, Timothy Creamer, Michael Foreman, Michael E. Fossum, Stanley Love, Leland Melvin, Barbara Morgan, John Olivas, Nicholas Patrick, Garrett Reisman, Patricia Robertson, Steven Swanson, Douglas Wheelock, Sunita Williams, Neil Woodward
- International mission specialists: Léopold Eyharts (France), Paolo Nespoli (Italy), Marcos Pontes (Brazil), Hans Schlegel (Germany), Robert Thirsk (Canada), Bjarni Tryggvason (Canada), Roberto Vittori (Italy)
- This group includes Barbara Morgan, the first Educator-Astronaut to be selected by NASA. She was the backup "Teacher-In-Space" payload specialist to Christa McAuliffe on the ill-fated Challenger Disaster in 1986. Robertson (nee Hilliard) was killed in the crash of a private airplane before she could be assigned to a shuttle mission.
October 7 - 1998 ESA Group - ESA
December 14 - 1999 NASDA Group - Japan
[edit] 2000
July 26 - NASA Group 18 - The Bugs - USA
- Pilots: Dominic A. Antonelli, Eric A. Boe, Kevin A. Ford, Ronald J. Garan, Jr., Terry W. Virts, Jr., Barry E. Wilmore
- Mission Specialists: Michael R. Barratt, Robert L. Behnken, Stephen G. Bowen, B. Alvin Drew, Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good, Douglas G. Hurley, Timothy L. Kopra, K. Megan McArthur, Karen L. Nyberg, Nicole P. Stott
[edit] 2003
11 September - SpaceShipOne - USA[1]
- First group of commercial astronauts: Brian Binnie, Mike Melvill, Doug Shane, Peter Siebold[2]
[edit] 2004
May 6 - NASA Group 19 - The Peacocks - USA
- Pilots: Randolph Bresnik, James Dutton
- Mission specialists: Thomas Marshburn, Christopher Cassidy, R. Shane Kimbrough, Jose Hernandez, Robert Satcher, Shannon Walker
- Educator mission specialists: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard Arnold, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger
- International mission specialists: Satoshi Furukawa (Japan), Akihiko Hoshide (Japan), Naoko Yamazaki (Japan)
[edit] 2006
March 30 - Virgin Galactic - UK
- Astronaut pilots: Steve Johnson, Alistair Hoy, David MacKay [3]
September 4 - Angkasawan Group - Malaysia
- Research cosmonauts: Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Faiz Khaleed, Siva Vanajah, Mohammed Faiz Kamaluddin
October 11 - Cosmonaut Group - Russia
- Aleksandr Misurkin, Oleg Novitskiy, Aleksey Ovchinin, Maksim Ponomaryov, Sergey Ryzhikov, Yelena Serova, Nikolai Tikhonov
December 25 - South Korean Group
- Research cosmonauts: Yi So-yeon, Ko San
