NASA's Astronaut Candidates Are Halfway There

Geology in Iceland, supersonic jets, and altitude chambers: the 2025 class is building the skills to reach the Moon and Mars.

By The space-quantum Desk

Ten astronaut candidates are roughly halfway through NASA's nearly two-year training program — one designed to prepare them for missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and ultimately Mars. [1]

Geology sits at the core of their curriculum. In May, the class completed classroom work at Johnson Space Center before heading to the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico for additional classroom instruction and training in the field. In July, several candidates joined NASA astronauts and Artemis mission support teams for geology field training in Iceland, practicing geologic observations, sampling with tools, navigation, and teamwork. [1]

Aviation training runs in parallel. This summer that meant flying NASA's WB-57s — a trio of long-range, high-altitude airplanes that have flown research missions since the 1960s — and beginning flying NASA's T-38 supersonic jets. [1] Candidates also logged time in one of Johnson's altitude chambers, where pressure levels can be simulated from sea level to near vacuum. [1]

Alongside those, candidates are completing intensive Russian language classes, learning spacecraft systems, conducting spacewalk training, and learning emergency procedures, maintenance, and repair of spacecraft. [1] The class is on track to graduate in 2027. [1]

What emerges from the dossier is a portrait of astronaut training as relentlessly plural — part field geology, part cold-water survival, part language immersion. The breadth is the point.

[1]

all skills and processes that translate directly to Artemis lunar missionsNASA