Who Is Raja Chari? Indian-American NASA Astronaut Nominated As US Air Force Brigadier General

In 2020, Raja Chari was selected as the Commander of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA and the European Space Agency.

Washington: US President Joe Biden on Thursday nominated Indian-American astronaut Raja Chari for promotion to US Air Force brigadier general. Brigadier General (BG) is a one-star General Officer rank of the United States Air Force. It is just above Colonel and below Major General. Raja Chari at present is a member of the Artemis team of astronauts preparing for the US mission of returning to the moon. This nomination still remains to be confirmed by the senate that all senior civilian and military appointments.

Chari is currently serving as the Crew-3 commander and astronaut, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johnson Space Center, Texas.

Who is Raja Chari

1. Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari is an Indian-American test pilot and NASA astronaut who has over 2,000 hours of flying including F-15E combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula.
2. He earned a master’s degree in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland.
3. Chari served as the commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
4. Inspired by his father Srinivas Chari, who went to the US at a young age from Hyderabad for an engineering degree, to get a higher education and make a successful career. He met his wife and spent his entire career at John Deere in Waterloo.
5. In 2020, Chari was selected as the Commander of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA and the European Space Agency.
6. Chari joins this mission with extensive experience as a test pilot. He has accumulated more than 2,500 hours of flight time in his career.

(With PTI inpits)