Astronaut from county may talk to kids

By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

A Space Force astronaut who spent his childhood in Marion County is set to command a mission later this month to bring back two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station.

Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are expected to launch Sept. 24 on a SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been on the space station since June 6. They were scheduled to be there eight days. But the Boeing Starliner that took them into space developed a series of problems, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration changed plans for their return. The Starliner returned to earth unoccupied Saturday.

NASA decided to send just two crew members on the SpaceX Dragon Hague will command so the marooned astronauts can use its two other seats for the return voyage. The mission is expected to return to earth in February.

Peabody-Burns schools, which Hague attended while living in Marion County as a child, have taken notice of the assignment.

“I put in my application to talk to Nick in space, and I haven’t heard anything back yet,” elementary school principal Travis Schafer said.

Hague’s father, Don, was a principal at Peabody-Burns from 1982 to 1989. His mother, Bev, was Marion-Florence school district clerk.

Peabody-Burns students watched the liftoff and talked to Hague during a previous space mission in 2018.

Founded in December 2019, Space Force is the U.S. military’s youngest branch, focused on protecting U.S. assets in space, such as communications, weather, and navigation satellites. Hague, who joined Space Force in 2021 after serving in NASA, was the second astronaut to join Space Force.

Hague was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013. He earned a Bachelor of Science in astronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1998, and a Master of Science in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000.

Hague completed astronaut candidate training in July 2015.