Who Is Raja Chari: The Indian-Origin Astronaut in NASA’s New Mission To the Moon

On December 9, NASA announced a list of 18 astronauts who will train for its Artemis moon-landing programme. The ambitious modern lunar exploration programme will land the first woman and next man on the Moon in 2024. Officials say it aims to establish a “sustainable human-lunar presence” by the end of the decade.

Among these 18 names is that of 43-year-old Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, an Indian-American US Air Force colonel, with over 2,000 hours of flight time.

Chari was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father, Sreenivas V Chari, came to the US from Hyderabad at a young age to earn an engineering degree and carve a successful career for himself. “My father came to the country with the goal of getting an education and realising the importance of that directly translated to how I was brought up,” Chari told PTI, and added, “There was a focus throughout my childhood on education and that you really needed to do well to succeed.”

Chari is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and US Naval Test Pilot School, and the only Indian-American name on this list. He was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class, and reported for duty in August the same year. Having completed the initial training, he is now eligible for a mission assignment.

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