RICHMOND — Sen. Mark Warner met virtually with NASA Astronaut and Williamsburg native Zena Cardman ahead of her launch to the International Space Station next month.
Cardman, who was selected by NASA as a member of the 2017 “Turtles” Astronaut Class will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and spend six months at the International Space Station as Crew-9 Commander.
Cardman will conduct a wide-ranging set of operational and research activities in what will be her first spaceflight.
The Williamsburg native graduated from Bruton High School and holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a master’s in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of her selection by NASA, she was a doctoral candidate in geosciences, where her research focused on geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep-sea sediments. Cardman’s experience includes multiple Antarctic expeditions.
At the time of her selection in June 2017, Cardman was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the Pennsylvania State University, where she studied nitrogen- and sulfur-cycling in chemosynthetic biofilms, according to NASA.
Since completing initial training, Cardman has supported real-time station operations and development for lunar surface exploration, according to the Senator’s office.
“Had the honor of meeting virtually today with Williamsburg’s own Zena Cardman — the NASA Astronaut and Crew-9 Commander who will soon be heading to the International Space Station for 6 months,” Warner said in a post on the social platform X. “Zena told me all about her path to becoming an astronaut, including the inspiration she drew from her biology teacher at Bruton High School, the important influence of growing up next to Jefferson Lab, and the valuable experiences at Virginia laboratories that helped shape her interest in research. It’s clear: the Commonwealth is for STEM leaders.”
WYDaily sat down for an interview with Cardman in 2020. Read it here.
According to NASA, the launch of its SpaceX Crew-9 mission is targeted for no earlier than mid-August from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will carry NASA astronauts Cardman, commander; Nick Hague, pilot; and Stephanie Wilson, mission specialist; along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, mission specialist.
