.As the hub of human spaceflight, NASA's Johnson Area Center in Houston carries a selection of special obligations and also benefits. Those feature being the home of NASA's rocketeer corps.Among those rocketeers-- Nick Hague-- is actually now preparing to launch to the International Space Station along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on the nine spinning purpose under NASA's Business Staff Course. This will certainly be the third launch and also 2nd goal to the space station for Hague, who was actually decided on as a NASA rocketeer in 2013 as well as has actually invested 203 times precede.Hague was birthed and raised in Kansas however has actually crisscrossed the country for college as well as job. He got levels coming from the United States Air Troop Institute in Colorado as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Innovation in Cambridge, as well as he went to the united state Flying force Exam Fly College at Edwards Air Force Foundation in California. Hague's military profession has actually taken him to New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, and also Washington, D.C., and featured a five-month deployment to Iraq. Hague transferred coming from the Flying force to the USA Room Force in 2020 after functioning as the Area Force's supervisor of test and analysis at the Government.No stranger to brand new spots, Hague strongly recollects making his first journey to Johnson when he was actually questioning to participate in NASA's astronaut corps. "I possessed no suggestion what to expect, as well as it was actually a bit frustrating. I knew everybody was actually enjoying me as well as judging me," he pointed out. "Luckily, despite the fact that I wasn't picked then, I acquired one more possibility a handful of years later on. It is actually a rather magical location.".Hague accomplished his rocketeer instruction in July 2015 as component of NASA's 21st rocketeer course. He was the very first astronaut from that team to become appointed to an objective, which released in October 2018 yet was aborted quickly after departure. His next spaceflight took place in 2019, when he participated in 3 of his classmates-- NASA rocketeers Jessica Meir, Christina Koch, and Andrew Morgan-- aboard the International Spaceport Station for Expeditions 59 as well as 60.Hague has actually brought in several minds at Johnson, but one that sticks out is his knowledge operating onsite among the 2013 authorities closure. "I'm active-duty armed forces so I still pertained to function," he revealed. "I don't forget being actually onsite and the center being totally unfilled. Being able to ride around a vacant university on the free-range bikes-- it was actually serene and surreal." It was actually likewise a preview of what several Johnson staff members experienced during the course of the global and just how NASA preserves continuous support for spaceflight operations irrespective of extenuating circumstances.Hague right now looks ahead to one more journey to low Planet orbit. NASA and SpaceX representatives currently plan to launch the Crew-9 objective no earlier than Wednesday, Sept. 25. The workers is going to lift off from Introduce Intricate 40 from the Cape Canaveral Area Troop Terminal in Fla aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Monster spacecraft.Hague and also Gorbonov will certainly become members of the Trip 72 workers aboard the station. They will participate in NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, and also Don Pettit, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and also Ivan Vagner, as well as will invest about six months performing clinical research study in microgravity and also finishing a stable of functional tasks before returning home.Even more particulars regarding the mission and staff may be located through following the Crew-9 blog, @commercial_crew on X, or industrial crew on Facebook. You may also observe @astrohague on X and also Instagram.