HYDERABAD: Four years from now, an Indian-American with family roots in Telangana’s Mahbubnagar district may well be walking on the moon.
The United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has announced Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari’s name in the 18-member ‘Artemis’ team selected for the ambitious lunar exploration program. Chari would be the third Indian-American in space after Kalpana Chawla in 1997 and Sunita Williams in 2006. He was among those chosen from 18,000 applicants in 2017 when NASA announced the Artemis program.
“Meet Raja Chari, an initial member of the Nasa’s Artemis team who will help pave the way for the next human missions on and around the moon,” Nasa Aeronautics said in an announcement about Raja Chari on Twitter.
Chari’s father Srinivas Chari, who hails from Mahbubnagar, migrated to the US after completing his education at Osmania University in Hyderabad.
While pursuing higher studies in the US in the 1950s, he got married to Peggy Egbert. The fact that Srinivas Chari realized his own dreams of pursuing higher studies in the US and worked in a job he liked for 32 years seemed to have influenced Raja Chari to dream big. Srinivas passed away in 2010. “There was a focus throughout my childhood on education. That you really needed to do well to succeed,” Chari, who was born in 1977 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, told a news agency. Chari and his wife Holly have three children.
Chari, who has 2,000 hours of flight time with the US Air Force, is excited about having been selected to be part of the mission. “Proud to be a small part of the big team working to get humans to the moon to stay,” the 43-year-old astronaut tweeted. Under the Artemis program, NASA will land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024.
Speaking about his life and journey to becoming an astronaut, Chari said: “This is actually not a dream. This is actually happening. If I ask my mom, she definitely has memories of me as a child talking about being an astronaut. I always knew I wanted to do something related to aviation. I have been blessed to have the support of my family.
” In a video shared by Nasa Aeronautics, he said: “But at the same time, I think I also started to tell myself it wasn’t really possible because it was just something they’ll get let down from.
” A colonel in the US Air Force joined the astronaut corps in 2017. He received a bachelor’s degree in astronautical engineering and a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics. A graduate of the US Naval Test Pilot School, he worked on F-15E upgrades and then the F-35 development program before joining the NASA program. He was among 11 new Nasa graduates who successfully completed their over two years of basic astronaut training in January 2020.
Chari was awarded the Defence 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 Defence Service Medal, and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal, among others.
