Mark Vande Hei

This will be NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei’s first spaceflight. Mark has a background in physics and engineering at the US army before working at NASA as a Capcom at mission control in 2006. In 2009 he was selected as an astronaut – the same year as ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Mark finished his astronaut training in 2011.

Mark and Thomas are both aquanauts having spent eight days living in an underwater habitat as part of NASA’s underwater simulated space missions NEEMO.