NASA Announces 10 New Astronaut Candidates for Future Missions

NASA has named the members of its new astronaut candidate class who may help establish a sustainable presence on the moon.
The four women and six men named on Dec. 6 constitute the US space agency's 23rd group of astronaut candidates since the original Mercury 7 were chosen in 1959 and the first to be recruited since the start of NASA's Artemis moon program, Space.com reported. 
The new class of 10 was narrowed from a pool of more than 12,000 applicants after an extended recruitment process that began in March 2020 and was delayed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The astronaut candidates, or "ascans" for short, were announced at a ceremony held at Ellington Field, NASA's base for flight operations, located near Johnson Space Center in Houston. Agency leaders, including administrator Bill Nelson and deputy administrator Pam Melroy, presided over the event, which had as its backdrop some of the same T-38 supersonic jets that the ascans will use to train.
"Today we welcome 10 new explorers, 10 members of the Artemis generation, NASA's 2021 astronaut candidate class," said Nelson. "Alone, each candidate has 'the right stuff', but together they represent the creed of our country: E pluribus unum — out of many, one."
The candidates are scheduled to report to Johnson in January to begin their training in spacecraft systems, spacewalking skills and other necessary disciplines for spaceflight. After graduating from two years of basic instruction, the Group 23 members will become eligible for a variety of assignments, including performing research on the International Space Station, launching on commercial spacecraft to outposts in low Earth orbit and embarking on missions into deep space aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.
Some of the candidates may become members of NASA's Artemis team, a subset of the agency's astronaut office, assigned to preparing for humans to return to the moon and eventually launch to Mars.
The candidates include seven military officers, two scientists, two medical doctors and a research pilot.