NASA Shares SpaceX Crew-14 Assignments for Space Station Mission

NASA has assigned four crew members from three space agencies to SpaceX Crew-14, a long-duration science expedition to the International Space Station launching no earlier than spring 2027. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Chris Birch will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, with JAXA astronaut Makoto Suwa and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan as mission specialists.

After docking, Crew-14 will join the space station’s Expedition 75/76. The mission is the 14th commercial crew rotation with SpaceX under NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, and the crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars and to benefit people on Earth.

This will be Barron’s second flight to the space station. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, plus a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England.

A commander in the U.S. Navy, Barron earned her submarine warfare officer qualification and deployed three times aboard the USS Maine. She first launched to the space station in 2021 aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, spending a total of 177 days in space across space station Expeditions 66/67. She completed two spacewalks and served as lead robotics operator for another.

Most recently, Barron supported the development of new technologies and operational concepts for NASA’s Artemis program.

Birch was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021. She graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and she earned a doctorate in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She later taught bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside, and scientific writing and communication at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Birch competed as a decorated track cyclist on the U.S. National Team and was named to the Olympic Long Team for the 2020 Tokyo Games. She has served as a capsule communicator, supporting crews aboard the space station and during the Artemis II mission. Birch was crew lead for Expedition 72, working with flight control teams to help manage daily operations, and served as a crew representative for NASA’s Orion Program, supporting Artemis II mission development and operations.

This will be Birch’s first spaceflight.

The Crew-14 mission also is the first spaceflight assignment for Suwa. Before JAXA selected him as an astronaut candidate in 2023, Suwa spent nearly a decade with the World Bank Group. Previously, he served in Rwanda as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer before joining the United Nations World Meteorological Organization.

Suwa holds a doctorate in geosciences from Princeton University and completed basic training to become certified as an astronaut in 2024. Kiviryan is identified as a Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist; no further biographical details for him are included in the announcement excerpt.