Astronaut from NC headed back to International Space Station for 6-month mission in 2021

North Carolina will figure prominently in a NASA-SpaceX mission next fall.

Dr. Tom Marshburn, a native of Statesville and a graduate of Davidson College, will serve as pilot for the commercial mission to the International Space Station, the agency announced Monday. The six-month mission will be his third to ISS, with his last trip ending in 2013.

Marshburn, 60, graduated from Davidson in 1982 with a degree in physics. He also earned a master’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia and earned a Doctorate of Medicine from Wake Forest University.

Before becoming an astronaut in 2004, Marshburn served as a physician in Toledo, Ohio, Seattle, Houston and Boston, according to a NASA news release.

Marshburn joined NASA as a flight surgeon in 1994, according to his NASA profile. He served as flight surgeon at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and later became medical operations lead for the International Space Station.

He also previously served on the space shuttle Endeavour crew in July 2009.

Marshburn will be joined by NASA astronaut Raja Chari, and German astronaut Matthias Maurer. A fourth crew member will be named at a later date. Marshburn’s team will have a slight overlap with another crew of astronauts that is expected to launch in the spring.

’I fell in love with Earth again’

Marshburn’s hometown of Statesville threw a welcome home party after his last trip to the ISS ended in 2013. Mayor Costi Kutteh called Marshburn “the most important Statesvillian in the history of the city.”

He told the crowd how the six astronauts aboard the station worked 13-hour days conducting 130 experiments at any one time. The astronauts, he said, had to exercise 2 1/2 hours a day because in space “you turn into a jellyfish.”

Marshburn also performed an unplanned 5 1/2-hour spacewalk to fix an ammonia leak outside the space station.

He told the crowd how beautiful Earth looked, most especially his native Piedmont, of which he caught 15-second glimpses while encircling the Earth.

“I fell in love with Earth again,” he told the crowd.

Another astronaut from NC

Marshburn is one of two U.S. astronauts with North Carolina ties to head to the International Space Station.

Astronaut Christina Koch, who grew up in Jacksonville and earned several degrees from N.C. State, spent 328 days at the International Space Station before returning to Earth in February. In doing so, she broke the record for longest continuous spaceflight by a woman.

Last week, NASA named her as one of 18 astronauts to train for the Artemis missions, The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported. NASA hopes to send humans back to the moon by 2024.

Observer writer Joe Marusak contributed to this story.

This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Astronaut from NC headed back to International Space Station for 6-month mission in 2021."