Air Force Academy Grad Bound For International Space Station
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (CBS4) - Another Falcon will soon be flying high into the sun.
NASA Astronaut Col. Jack Fischer will blast to the International Space Station on April 20, making the six-hour flight with Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin aboard the Russian-made Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft.
Fischer, a native of Louisville, Colo., graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in Astronautical Engineering. He piloted an F-15E Strike Eagle in two combat tours in Southwest Asia before becoming an F-22 Raptor test pilot, and being selected to become an astronaut. This will be Fischer's first flight into space.
When the pair reach the station, they'll join astronauts and cosmonauts already on board, and help with hundreds of biological, biotechnological, physical, and Earth-science experiments. They'll be aboard the station for four and a half months.
"I just want to see the Earth from my space station window and take photographs and hopefully learn from the experienced photographer on the station, Fyodor," he said. "He's taken some amazing photographs from the station over the last 20 years," Fischer said.
He will become the 38th Air Force Academy graduate to become an astronaut.