NASA assigns astronaut Jonny Kim to first space station mission

On his first mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will serve as flight engineer and member of the upcoming Expedition 72/73 crew.

Kim will be joined by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft in March 2025. The trio will spend about eight months aboard the space station.

Aboard the orbiting laboratory, Kim will conduct scientific research and technology demonstrations to help prepare the crew for future space missions and provide benefits to people on Earth.

NASA selected Kim as an astronaut in 2017. After completing initial astronaut candidate training, Kim supported mission and crew operations in various roles, including Expedition 65 lead operations officer, T-38 operations liaison, and space station capcom chief engineer.

A native of Los Angeles, Kim is a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy and a dual-commissioned Naval Aviator and Flight Surgeon. Kim also served as a Navy SEAL. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of San Diego and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in Boston. He completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

For more than two decades, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making scientific breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The station serves as a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and expand commercial opportunities in low-Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low-Earth orbit economy, NASA is able to focus more of its resources on deep-space missions to the Moon and Mars.

Get the latest news, images and reports from the space station on the station blog, Instagram, Facebook and X.

To learn more about International Space Station research and operations, visit the following sites:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

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Josh Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Courtney Beasley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
courtney.m.beasley@nasa.gov