Richland, Wash.
The Tri-City’s hometown astronaut has been picked by NASA for a second space mission.
Kayla Barron, a 2006 graduate of Richland High, will command NASA’s SpaceX Crew-14 mission, NASA announced Thursday.
The expedition to the International Space Station will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration mission to the moon and Mars and to benefit people on Earth, according to NASA.
She and three other crew members will launch no earlier than spring 2027.
It will be Barron’s second flight to the space station.
She spent six months aboard the space station, as a mission specialist, launching in late 2021 and returning to Earth in early May 2022. She worked on about 200 research projects during her stay, including the development of operational concepts for NASA’s plans to send astronauts to the moon.
She completed two space walks on the Crew-3 mission and served as lead robotics operator for another space walk.
On her upcoming flight to the International Space Station she’ll be joined by astronaut Chris Birch of NASA, serving as pilot; astronaut Makotot Suwa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, serving as a mission specialist; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan, serving as mission specialist.
While not a native of the Tri-Cities, Barron considers Richland her hometown after attending middle school and high school there.
Her father is Scott Sax, the retired president of the Central Plateau Cleanup Co. at the Hanford nuclear site, and Barron’s mother, Laurie Sax, coached her in track and cross country at Richland High School.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in system engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and then a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
NASA astronaut Kayla Barron from Richland, Wash., is pictured May 5, 2022, journeying back to Earth inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft following its undocking from the International Space Station. Courtesy NASA Submarine vs space station
As a Navy officer she was assigned to the USS Maine submarine. Part of the first class of women commissioned to be a submarine officer, she completed three strategic deterrent patrols aboard the Maine.
“I was lucky enough to be part of the Navy team that operates in confined spaces with limited resources in the hostile environment of the ocean,” she said when she was selected in 2017 as a NASA astronaut candidate.
“I think there are definitely a few parallels with what our astronauts are doing on the space stations and what we’ll need to do to learn how to be successful on long-duration deep space exploration missions,” she said then.
Richland astronaut Kayla Barron chatted from the International Space Station with then Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Dec. 21, 2021, discussing research, STEM education and climate change. Courtesy NASA TV
One of her favorite parts about living on the space station was the view.
Because the space station orbits Earth 16 times a day, those onboard get to see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets daily, and “every single one is beautiful and unique,” she said.
NASA astronaut Kayla Barron works inside the International Space Station’s Life Science Glovebox conducting botany research looking at the genetic architecture of plant regeneration in space in 2022. Courtesy NASA
When she returned to Earth, she described her stay on the space station as a “transformative experience and an extraordinary privilege.”
“If I am lucky enough to fly again I can only hope that it is even close to how awesome that mission was,” she said.
Richland astronaut Kayla Barron, third from left, during preflight training of NASA’s SpaceX Crew 14. NASA
She is currently supporting the development of new technologies and operational concepts for the Artemis Program, which is focused on returning humans to the moon as a stepping stone to visiting Mars.
NASA says her work includes the development of next generation of planetary space suits, lunar rovers and Gateway, a space station designed to orbit the moon as a hub for deep space exploration.
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