Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, an Indian-American, is one of the 18 astronauts selected by NASA and European Space Agency to serve as crew commander for SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). He became the fourth person of Indian origin to go to space after Sunita Williams in 2006, Kalpana Chawla (1997), and Rakesh Sharma (1984).
Raja Chari was born on June 24, 1977, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US. His father Srinivas had moved to the US from Telangana for higher studies, and later married American Peggy Egbert.
Achievements In June 2017, Chari was a Colonel-select in the US Air Force, serving as the Commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the Director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. He has completed more than 2,000 hours of flight time in the F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18 including F-15E combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula. He joined NASA in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an astronaut candidate.
He has earned many awards and honours, such as the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defense Service Medal, and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal. He was also named as the distinguished graduate from the US Air Force Academy, undergraduate pilot training, and the F-15E formal training unit.