NASA Assigns Astronaut as Specialist for Crew-3 Dragon Mission, Who is Kayla Barron?

NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission has only begun, but the American space agency is already finalizing the crew members of the Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA recently announced that it had selected the astronaut Kayla Barron as the fourth crew member of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission, which is targeted to launch as early as October 23 this year.

The Crew-3 Dragon mission to the space station is slated to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Launch Complex 39A of Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-3 Dragon Mission

NASA assigns Kayla Barron as the mission specialist for the Crew-3 Dragon mission, joining fellow NASA astronauts Raja Chari who will be the commander of the mission, and Tom Marshburn who will serve as the pilot, as well as European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer who will also serve as the mission specialist.

Space.com reported that NASA has always reserved the fourth seat for a cosmonaut. However, the American space agency failed to work out an agreement with Roscosmos, leading to the assignment of Barron as the fourth crew member.

The crew is scheduled to launch on October 23 and will spend six months on the ISS as members of the Expedition 66 crew that will conduct research and relieve the Crew-2 astronauts, launched in April.

The Crew-3 mission marks the third operational mission for the Crew Dragon of SpaceX for NASA's commercial crew program after the two-month Demo-2 test flight in May 2020 who carried astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS and the successful six-month stay of Crew-1 mission.

NASA has contracted SpaceX for six Crew Dragon missions with an option of additional missions in the future depending on the agency's needs and program.

Aside from that, SpaceX is also set to carry another crew up into space in September, known as Inspiration4. It is composed of four civilian crew, namely Jared Issacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski. They will be launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A on a three-day flight orbiting the Earth.

ALSO READ: SpaceX Crew-2 Mission Arrives at ISS, Docks at Harmony Module for 6-Month Stay

Who is NASA Astronaut Kayla Barron?

According to NASA's press release, astronaut Kayla Barron earned her bachelor's degree in systems engineering in 2010 from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Then in 2011, she earned her master's degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

Barron is a lieutenant commander who earned her submarine warfare officer qualification and was deployed three times to serve the USS Maine. She was serving as the flag aide to the superintendent of the US Naval Academy in 2017 when she was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA.

When Barron and the three other crew of the Crew-3 mission arrive at the space station, they will have a slight overlap with the Crew-2 astronauts. This is the second time commercial crew missions have overlapped in the ISS after the overlap between the Crew-1 and Crew-2 missions for a seven-day direct crew handover.