New Delhi: Indian-origin Raja Chari is among the 18 astronauts selected for NASA’s initial team to help pave the way for the next lunar missions.
The 43-year-old Chari, who is also a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, is the only Indian-origin member of the team that also includes nine women. The team is a part of the Artemis Lunar Exploration Programme, through which NASA hopes to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024.
US Vice-President Mike Pence introduced the members of the Artemis Team Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“I give you the heroes who will carry us to the moon and beyond – the Artemis Generation,” Pence said. “It is amazing to think that the next man and first woman on the Moon are among the names that we just read”, he added.
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A trained pilot with 2,000 hours flight time
On 10 December, Chari tweeted that he was proud to be a part of the NASA team working to get humans to the moon to stay.
Proud to be a small part of the huge @NASA team working to get humans to the moon to stay. We need explorers, engineers, and dreamers to get #Artemis there https://t.co/H3GaLjLe8K
— Raja Chari (@Astro_Raja) December 10, 2020
Chari was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class while he was still serving as a Colonel-select in the US Air Force. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in Astronautical Engineering and Engineering Science. He went on to earn a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.
Chari has 2,000 hours of flight time in the F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18 including F-15E combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and deployments in the Korean peninsula.
Son of an Indian immigrant
Born in 1977 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Raja Chari was raised in Iowa. His father Sreenivas Chari completed his bachelor’s degree from Hyderabad’s Osmania University and migrated to the US at a young age. Sreenivas obtained his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and worked at John Deere Waterloo Works. Chari’s mother Peggy Chari is a native of Iowa.
Chari, in a video interview, had said that his father was a formative force in his growing up years. “His desire to provide a better life for us was inspiring. It is not easy to start a new life as an immigrant in a new country, and I grew up acknowledging his sacrifices,” Chari said. “One thing that he brought from India with him was education, which made me learn the importance of it as a young child. It is a privilege, and should not be taken for granted.”
In the video put out by NASA, Chari also talks of his early life. “If I ask my mom, she definitely has memories of me as a child talking about being an astronaut. I always knew I wanted to do something related to aviation,” he said in the video. “But at the same time I think I also started to tell myself it wasn’t really possible because it was just something they’ll get let down from.”
Chari has a brother named Krishna Chari, who works as an engineer at Microsoft. Chari is married to Holly Schaffter Chari, also an Iowa native. Some of his extended family members still live in Hyderabad.
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