{"id":773438,"date":"2026-05-04T21:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/773438\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:40:13","slug":"unf-graduate-prepares-for-mission-to-space-as-nasa-astronaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/773438\/","title":{"rendered":"UNF graduate prepares for mission to space as NASA astronaut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NASA astronaut Luke Delaney has been selected for the SpaceX Crew-13 mission, which will mark his first visit to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 A former osprey is preparing to fly far beyond Earth&#8217;s atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>NASA astronaut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/people\/nasa-astronaut-luke-delaney\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Luke Delaney<\/a> has been selected as a pilot for the SpaceX Crew-13 mission, two decades after his graduation from the University of North Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Delaney, alongside NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, will head to the International Space Station (ISS) for a long-term science expedition.<\/p>\n<p>                                        &#13;<br \/>\n                                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.firstcoastnews.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                        &#13;<br \/>\n                                            This story continues below.&#13;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"article-recirculation__list\">&#13;<br \/>\n                &#13;<br \/>\n                    More in Local&#13;<br \/>\n                &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<li class=\"article-recirculation__item\">&#13;<br \/>\n                        <a class=\"article-recirculation__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.firstcoastnews.com\/article\/weather\/space-news-what-to-see-in-sky-first-coast\/77-68c49c58-b3a2-4870-8b90-0935f0c75505\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                                    <img   alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                                &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;<br \/>\n                                    Space News | What to see in the sky this week across the First Coast&#13;<br \/>\n                                &#13;\n                            <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                        <\/a>&#13;\n                    <\/li>\n<p>&#13;\n        <\/ul>\n<p>The mission will be Delaney&#8217;s first one to the ISS, where he will join the crew of Expedition 75.<\/p>\n<p>The Florida native is a former United States Marine Corps major, who completed his bachelor&#8217;s degree in Mechanical Engineering at UNF in 2006 before receiving his master&#8217;s degree in Aerospace Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School a decade later. During his time in the military, Delaney was a distinguished naval aviator and test pilot who participated in exercises throughout the Asia Pacific region and conducted combat missions supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, NASA reports.<\/p>\n<p>After retiring from the military in 2020, he became a pilot at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia and an aerospace engineer.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, he was one of just 10 people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstcoastnews.com\/article\/tech\/science\/aerospace\/unf-graduate-could-head-into-space\/77-d3bcd50a-28b2-4a4e-8120-96ecc52a93d4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">chosen as astronaut candidates<\/a> from a pool of more than 12,000 applicants. Now, with his training complete, Delaney will soon put it to use.<\/p>\n<p>The SpaceX Crew-13 mission will launch no earlier than mid-September, according to NASA.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut Luke Delaney has been selected for the SpaceX Crew-13 mission, which will mark his first visit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":773439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-773438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}