This Michigan college alum is blasting off to the International Space Station – MLive.com

ALBION, MI - There are numerous astronauts who hail from the state of Michigan. Almost all of them studied or taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

One about to go to the International Space Station now, however, is an Albion College Briton.

Josh Cassada, a 1995 alumnus of the private college in Calhoun County, is part of the NASA SpaceX Crew-5 mission heading to the space station orbiting more than 250 miles above the Earth.

Cassada will join his crew for a launch tentatively scheduled for late September, Albion College officials said.

We are honored and excited to have Josh represent our great nation and Albion College in space, said Joe Calvaruso, the colleges interim president.

Along with three members of his crew, this is a first-time flight into space for Cassada, he said in a Thursday afternoon NASA news conference. The months-long stay in the ISS is a part of the Artemis missions, or an effort by NASA to land the first woman and person of color on the Moon prior to branching out to Mars.

Whats so great about this is that were doing something greater than ourselves, Cassada said during the Aug. 4 conference. Those first-time fliers, were bringing a lot of energy to the ISS.

The International Space Station Crew includes NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina. This is NASAs fifth crew rotation flight carrying personnel to the station, which operates as a microgravity laboratory, officials said.

Cassada earned his bachelors degree in physics from Albion College before earning a masters and doctorate in physics from University of Rochester in New York. He served in the U.S. Navy as an aviator aboard P-3C patrol planes, accumulating more than 4,000 flight hours and 23 combat missions.

Cassada has spent the larger part of the last decade preparing to enter space, as NASA selected him for its Astronaut Group 21 in 2013. After completing two years of training, he supporting ISS operations until in August 2018, he was one of two astronauts selected for the CTS-1 program, which would fly Boeings CST-100 Starliner aircraft into space.

He was reassigned to SpaceX Crew-5 due to delays in the Starliner project, according to Space Explored.

During Thursdays conference, Cassada expressed excitement for the various science experiments he will conduct up in space alongside Mann, Wakata and Kikina. For the six months he is in space, he also plans to watch a lot of movies from the 1980s, he said.

We will watch (the Chevy Chase comedy) Fletch every Friday so Nicole can get my references, he said.

Experiments in the ISS include the Cold Atom Lab, which is used to study the behavior of atoms in extremely cold temperatures. As a physicist, these excite him for the journey ahead.

That one is near and dear to my heart, Cassada said. Were lucky we get to do all kinds of science.

To view the press conference, visit nasa.gov/nasalive.

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This Michigan college alum is blasting off to the International Space Station - MLive.com