NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 Jasmin Moghbeli Interview Resource Reel

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli is commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station. She is joined by ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023 on the company’s seventh crew rotation mission for NASA. This is Moghbeli’s first trip into space since her selection as a NASA astronaut in 2017. The New York native earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering with information technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Master of Science in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Moghbeli, a helicopter and Marine Corps test pilot, has more than 150 combat missions and 2,000 hours of flight time in over 25 different aircraft. She also is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. In her role as mission commander, she will be responsible for all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry. She will serve as an Expedition 69/70 flight engineer aboard the station.

What is said in the film

My name is Jasmin Moghbeli. I'm the commander of NASA's SpaceX Crew-7 Mission to the International Space Station. I was born in Bad Nauheim, Germany. My parents left Iran during the revolution and ended up in Germany. My brother and I were both born there and then we eventually came to the United States when I was just a baby.

So I grew up in New York before I was five. We moved around a bit in Queens, New York, and ended up in Long Island. And Baldwin, New York is where I grew up. Went through kindergarten to-- all the way through high school in New York. And growing up in-in Baldwin on Long Island was, I feel really lucky.

And that's something I think I didn't realize as a kid how lucky I was to grow up there, but went to public schools and we had all sorts of different, different activities. You know, they didn't just stress the academics, but also the arts, music, and performing arts, all those sorts of thing. I played sports all throughout my time in middle school and high school there. And after that I went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied aerospace engineering there for four years. I also played a few varsity sports while I was there and then joined the Marine Corps after that.

I always loved team sports from a really young age. I started playing basketball in second grade, but even before then, I remember I was just waiting to play, waiting to join a team. And I did at some points try some non-- you know, non team sports. And I was always just drawn to-to the team sports because you-you rely on one another. And I felt like I grew so much as a person playing team sports.

You learn a lot about not just-- it's not just about me. It's about my teammates as well and lifting them up. And that's something that I think is really important to know going-going forward in-in your career. You know, I was just drawn, I think, to space in general as a kid. I remember, you know, even in elementary school once a year at least, they would bring in this dome in the gym and we'd get to sit in it and they talk about the constellations.

And, you know, in sixth grade, I did a book report on Valentina Tereshkova and got really interested in becoming an astronaut. So I was always interested in space and engineering just made sense for me in terms of-- I always liked history and-and reading different literature, but I was good at math and science. I loved physics and learning about how the world works and-and just the laws of physics that drive everything around us. And so I figured I'd combine those two and study aerospace engineering. I knew I wanted to join the military from a pretty young age.

I remember my grandfather coming to visit when I was just in kindergarten or first grade, and he was in the Navy in Iran, and he told me stories of his time traveling to different countries. And he spoke, I think, eight languages fluently. And so that-- that from a young age started to get me interested in the military. And then by the time I was in middle school, I started to look at, well, what-what do I want to do in the military? And that's when I started looking at aviation, you know, my love of air and space combined with that desire to-- to serve in the military.

And so I decided I wanted to go into military aviation, but I wasn't sure which branch yet. And it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I was even introduced to the Marine Corps. I didn't know anything about the Marine Corps. I don't think I would have even known it was a branch of service. And I went to the Naval Academy Summer seminar program, and at the end of that, a marine Corps officer spoke to us.

And I remember he just had this like sense of pride in the way he carried himself. So that started to get me thinking about-about the Marine Corps. And a few years later, I met a marine Corps officer-- selection officer while at a career for-- a career fair at MIT. And it just kind of went from there. I-I didn't really have flying experience prior to the Marine Corps, except my dad knew I really was interested in becoming a pilot.

So when I was in middle school, early high school, someone he knew from work actually was an instructor and he took me in his Cessna aircraft and let me fly it, you know, for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. And from then on I was like, okay, I know I want to become a pilot. I joined the Marine Corps, funny enough. Sure, I wanted to fly jets and wondering why would anyone want to fly helicopters when you can go fly jets? But during my time in the Marine Corps, you know, we have officer candidate school and then six months of the basic school for every Marine Corps officer and two of my good friends during that time wanted to become Cobra pilots and talked to me a lot about Cobras and their mission.

And one of them, his father even flew cobras. So hearing their stories and then during the basic school, we do these field exercises where I got flights on different helicopters as part of that to insert us into different zones and part of our different missions. And so from there I was like, Well, helicopters are actually really cool. And then I remember the first time I saw a Cobra overhead while training at the basic school, and I knew I wanted to fly that, but I was actually torn because I thought you had to be a jet pilot to become an astronaut. And I wanted to still keep that door open.

And I actually went to watch STS-116 launch while I was waiting to start flight school. And Sonny Williams happened to be on that flight. And as I was reading the bios of the different crew members, I realized she was a Navy helicopter pilot. And from that point on, I went full steam ahead on trying to get Cobras, and I was lucky enough to get my first selection. Something I really learned from flying helicopters, and it's not-- it's not specific to the technical aspect of flying helicopters or anything like that, but it was perspective and it was something I realized after my first deployment, talking to the Marines on the ground, you know, in the helicopter, we have this great aerial view and your situational awareness is really high.

But you don't-- you don't realize from the point of view of the Marine on the ground, they just see the vehicle ahead of them in the convoy and the vehicle behind them, and realizing how much different perspective can be beneficial or advantageous. I first started looking at becoming a test pilot when I was younger in middle school, and it stemmed from that desire to become an astronaut. I was looking what are different paths to become an astronaut. And and one of them was becoming a military test pilot. And so then I started looking into it more and more, especially after I joined the Marine Corps and became a pilot.

And of course, as I did each of my deployments, it started getting closer to that time where I would need to apply. I realized it combined two things I loved: the engineering and design aspect, you know, that I had studied in college and loved growing up, and also the operational aspect. You-you are an operator flying these aircraft and you need to make sure they're good for the mission before you give them to the fleet. And so it just combined two things that I loved beautifully. So it's interesting, my background as a test pilot I think has been really beneficial coming into this role as commander of Crew-7.

The Crew Dragon is a very different vehicle than anything else I've ever flown, but I've flown so many different things that I knew I needed to come up with a different way to learn how to be an effective operator in this vehicle. It's very automated, which, you know, the helicopter that I flew didn't even have an autopilot, the one that I did all my deployments in. So it's very different in that aspect. But just knowing from flying so many different things what makes a good operator and then realizing from that, okay, what does that mean I need to learn about this vehicle to make me a good operator? Which is very different than some of the details I maybe needed to learn about other aircraft I had flown in the past.

I was lucky to have learned a lot about leadership during my time in the Marine Corps, not just as a pilot and test pilot, but also leading the Marines who-who served with me. And one of the most important things I learned early on was... how you treat people is going to really reflect on their willingness to work with you and cooperate with you, and-and just genuinely caring about the person-- people you're working with is so important. And so, you know, coming into this mission as-as commander of Crew 7, this is my first spaceflight, but I'm flying with two crew members who have had the experience of flying to space before. And so recognizing where-- where are their strengths?

Where can I do better? And just, I think being-- being humble about it and all of us realizing what we bring to the table and where we can grow individually and as a team is something that I just try to foster in our team. Becoming an astronaut has been a dream of mine since I was in elementary school. But you think about-- a lot of kids say they want to be an astronaut in elementary school, but it just never went away for me. It was something that just grew and grew as I learned more and more about it and went further and further in my career.

And it was something I could just never-- Sometimes it was at the forefront. Sometimes it was in the background of my mind, but it was always something that was there. And so when I was going through test pilot school, actually, Anne McClain was the class ahead of me, an Army helicopter pilot. And again, it was a reminder, just like Suni Williams flying on STS-116 as a Navy helicopter pilot, that, you know, I was a helicopter pilot, and this was something that I could do. And so the next time that NASA announced they were going to be selecting a new class of astronauts, I figured, why not put my name in the hat?

This was something I've wanted to do since I was little. And it's one of those things you never really think you're going to be the one to get selected. It seems like such a long shot, but I figured I had just as much chance as anyone else, and so I applied. And the application process, I think the hardest part of going through selection is the waiting between rounds to hear back. You know, you put in your application.

You wait for several months, and then you hope your references get contact, and then you wait for several months, and you hope you get a call to come in, and you wait again for several months, and you hope you get that-- that second call to come into the final rounds. And I remember, each time my phone would ring with a Houston number, you know, I'd have to kind of take a second to compose myself before answering the phone. And I remember when I went in for that final round, each time I met the other candidates, I thought to myself, this has been such a fun and amazing experience, but there's no way I'm going to be selected, because these other people are just incredible, and-and any one of them would-- would do such a great job. And so I remember when I got that final call, I had just gotten off a red eye flight going to a friend's wedding. And I was trying to, you know, check into my hotel room, and my phone rang with that Houston number.

And I just kind of dropped my things in the hallway to-- to get inside and answer the phone. And the first thing they did when they called was made small talk. "How's it going? " You know? And-and all you want to know at that point is, did I make it or not?

And then finally they asked, Would you like to come join the 22nd group of astronaut candidates? And I don't think I've ever had such a strong physiological reaction to something. You know, of course I said yes. And then they tell you, well, you can't tell anyone yet except maybe your close family and your boss, because we need you to come out for the announcement. And so trying to call my parents afterwards, and my hands were shaking.

It took me a couple tries just to dial their number. So it's-it's hard to describe when you've wanted something your whole life that just seemed unattainable and you actually achieve that-- achieve that goal. Our Crew 7 mission to the International Space Station will take our four crew members to the International Space Station, which is-- think of it as an orbiting laboratory around the Earth. The-the main purpose of the International Space Station is to perform science, and that comes in many different forms. We're doing science and research on our-- on ourselves, our human bodies, and how we react in space so that we can eventually go further in the solar system.

We're learning about our planet Earth and looking back at Earth and the different weather phenomenons and, you know, what's happening in our tropical regions and all those sorts of things. We're learning about the Earth. And then as part of that, also, in the International Space Station, because you have weightlessness, you can-- you can do a lot of things you couldn't do back here in 1-G. You know, when you talk about composite materials, learning about how they form in that weightlessness environment is different than how they form in 1-G, and you can use that to your advantage. Or looking at tissues and cell cultures.

When we make cell cultures here on Earth, they're two-dimensional because they're on a flat surface. But on the Space Station, we can make those three dimensional so they're more like our tissues are here on Earth. And that leads into medical research, studying the impacts of radiation and aging on our bodies. And so all those things we do and also just the technologies we need to develop in order to live and work in space are beneficial to us back-back here on Earth, things like, water is really heavy to launch to the International Space Station. So we regenerate the moisture in the air, our humidity, our sweat, and things like that, and then clean it and use it as drinking water or water to hydrate our food.

That's really beneficial for areas that don't have access to clean water. The technologies we use to rehabilitate our bodies when we return from spaceflight have applications to physical therapy for other patients here on Earth. So I think just by-- by virtue of the technologies we need for living and working in space, we're developing technologies that help us back here on Earth. As I think about going into this six-month mission, something I try to remind myself to do while I'm up there is-- is be in each moment and focus on what I'm doing that minute. We have long schedules.

There's a lot of work to accomplish up there, and we're switching tasks from very different things, Going from maintaining the Space Station one minute to performing a science experiment the next. And so making sure I'm present for what I'm doing in that moment and-and reminding myself why-- why it's important, that thing that I'm doing in that moment, The SpaceX Dragon is-- is unlike any vehicle I've flown before. It is a highly automated vehicle and-- and that requires a different line of thinking in some ways. You have to know where-- in order to be effective in that vehicle, you have to know there are times when you're mostly hands-off and letting the vehicle do its thing. And then it's really when something off-nominal happens or there's some sort of contingency or emergency situation, you have to be ready to respond in the appropriate way as a crew and not-- not getting lulled into a false sense of security at any point.

I'm really excited about our crew. We have an all-international crew, so it'll be myself as the commander, Andy Mogensen from Denmark in the European Space Agency, as the pilot, Satoshi Furukawa from Japan, the Japanese Space Agency, and Konstantin Borisov from the Russian Space Agency as the mission specialists. He's really complimentary to me as-as the pilot on the mission, because I'm someone who's very methodical and sometimes a little slow in that regard, where I'm going step by step, and Andy can just see how things work right away. But he's also got this amazing kind of soft, gentle side to him. He really loves nature and and wildlife, and he's not-- he has no ego whatsoever for someone who's so incredibly accomplished.

He's so modest and humble. And I've been really impressed by how he's always looking for ways to-- to grow himself. The first thing that always comes to mind when I think about Satoshi is he is such a thoughtful person, and it comes out in these really small but important-- important acts. You know, when-- when we went over to Russia for training for the first time, he knew I hadn't been there before, but he and Andy had both spent a lot of time there, and he made sure I knew where each classroom was the day prior. And he'll make sure if, you know, only three out of the four of us have a matching shirt, we don't wear matching shirts because all four of us should be wearing them.

And and so it's just a lot of-- a lot of little things. And he's also incredibly funny and very jovial. And he just will come up with things and say things sometimes out of nowhere that completely crack us up. I remember the first time I met Kostya, I had not known him before he was assigned to our mission, and it was even before we knew he would be our fourth crew member. I was just hearing he-- He might be our fourth.

And a couple of days after hearing that, we met in an elevator here at Johnson Space Center. And I felt so immediately connected to him and so excited that he would be joining our crew. He just has this energy about him in everything that he does. He's really passionate. He's passionate about human spaceflight.

He's passionate about everything he does. And he he chooses wisely what he does to be something that's meaningful for him. When-when we sat down as a crew and talked about our patch and what things were really important for us to represent in the patch, there were two big themes that were really special to both of us. One was we wanted to make sure we captured that everything we do is ultimately for the benefit of Earth and those on it, and the second was highlighting this really special international crew where we have members, uh, each seat is occupied from a different nation and different space agency. I think the reason we explore space in this international way is because it's a human thing to explore.

Humans have always wanted to push the boundaries. We're curious beings. We want to know what is out there, where we haven't-- we haven't been yet. And because of that and the strength that we have in working together, you know, it's like we talk about redundancy and technical systems. Exploring in an international way builds redundancy in that exploration.

And every time we've explored in the past, it has been beneficial to humans and to humankind. We always learn and develop technologies that help us. We learn more about our home planet. It's interesting to think about the fact that as we go further to try and look outward, we're also looking back at Earth. And-and that's-- and that's something that's really important to us as a crew, is ultimately everything we do is to benefit the Earth.

This mission is different from all the ones I've done in the Marine Corps, because this time I'm going away on this mission as a mother and as a wife. I didn't have my own family previously when I left on my deployments. And so it really brings a whole different aspect to it. My girls are just two and a half now and they're just learning about space in their daycare and, you know, they know Mommy's an astronaut. They know I'm launching on a rocket.

But do they really understand what that means and do they really understand how long I'm going to be gone? I don't really know. But we talk to them a lot about it. We read them different books, books on the International Space Station and on astronauts in general and space in general. So they definitely have some idea about what mommy does, but I don't know it they'll fully understand it until they're a little older.

On launch day, after we wake up, we have kind of our final meal before launch. I think that's something that's been a tradition for a long time is requesting what you're going to have for your-- your last meal before you go into space. Then we do some, you know, take care of logistical stuff, get our briefing. What's the weather looking like? Do our medical checks, make sure we're ready for launch, and then we get suited up, which I think is obviously a really exciting moment.

But probably the thing I'm most excited for is right before we drive out to the launch pad, that's that's our last time we see our families and say goodbye. And so my husband, Sam, and our two twin girls, Elda and Estelle, will be there. I'll be in my spacesuit about to drive off, and I'll get to see them for the last time. And then we drive out to the launch pad, get strapped in, and it's go time. Something I didn't realize before joining NASA is how incredibly hard spaceflight is.

You know, NASA, our international partners, our commercial partners sometimes make it look flawless and easy. But being here, I realize we've kept humans living and working on the International Space Station for over 20 years now. That's living in space, in the vacuum of space. And there are so many things, little details that need to go into that from not just the necessities for life. We need air to breathe.

We need to be able to communicate back with the ground team. You know, we need to control the temperature, but also the human-- the humans up there. And, you know, myself and Satoshi and Konstantin, we get to be the ones to be the face of this mission. But there are so many tens of thousands of people who have contributed just to our mission, let alone human exploration, human space exploration in general. And it's something that I don't think you can fully grasp until you're a part of it.

But we've seen the people that help train us, the people that make the hardware, develop the software, every single aspect of it. It takes an incredibly large team. Something I've thought about a lot since coming here is how many people contributed earlier in my life to developing me and my character. And I didn't realize how lucky I was. I grew up going to public school, but I still keep in touch with those teachers.

You know, my-- two of my elementary school teachers will be there at my launch. And the importance of-- of making kids believe that they can do something at such a young age, that carried with me throughout my life. And it was from my teachers, from my friends, and from my family. And that's what made me believe I should apply and could potentially become an astronaut. And because I believe that, I worked hard to achieve it, because it always seemed like a real option to me.

And so I think that's something that I'm really grateful for, having-having grown up in Baldwin, New York, and having had some incredible role models and mentors at a young age.

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