Monday, July 14, 2008

Update on Astronaut Candidate Selection Process

I have a friend who recently attended a NASA conference and had a chance to meet with someone who knew a little of what is to come of the astronaut candidate selection process. Please keep in mind that I have not seen this officially released by NASA anywhere, but it at least provides an overview with some tentative dates. I just wanted to share this with everyone as I know there are many people out there who have applied this round and are probably wondering what happens next.

August 2008/September 2008
Initial application review
1st sweep to disqualify initial applicants just based on application information

October 2008
A couple hundred applicants asked to visit JSC
Two groups
Group 1: Mon – Wed
Group 2: Wed – Fri
Social event scheduled for Wednesday
Anthropometric measurements (need to meet Soyuz standards)
Panel interviews (7-9 people in the panel)

February/March 2009
Only about 40 applicants selected for 2nd visit
Two groups for week long medical (one group during one week and another group during a different week)
Full body MRI
Hearing
Vision
CAT scan
EKG
Colonoscopy
Blood work, etc.
The final candidate group will be selected a couple of months after the final medical results.

3 comments:

sidd said...

this is it..your life's goal right in front of you..all the very best for it, i know you are going to give your all...good luck!

Unknown said...

Colonoscopy? They must want to make sure you're serious. ;)

BrianShiro said...

Thanks for the information. I just posted a similar timeline with more updated numbers but less detail on the interview processes. There's a link there back to this post.