Kjell N. Lindgren

Did You Know?

• In November 2015, while on the ISS, Lindgren played a set of bagpipes manufactured by McCallum Bagpipes Ltd as a memorial to Victor Hurst. This is thought to be the first time the Great Highland bagpipes have been played in space.
• He was a member of the Air Force Parachuting Team while at the United States Air Force Academy.
• Lindgren served as the only member of the backup crew for SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission, trained to take either the Spacecraft Commander or Joint Operations Commander seat.

Early life and education

Kjell N. Lindgren was born on January 23, 1973, in Taipei, Taiwan. His mother is Taiwanese, and his American father served in the US Air Force. His Chinese name is Lin Qi'er. The family lived in Taichung for more than two years before moving to the American Midwest, but Lindgren spent most of his childhood in England.

He attended Lakenheath American High School for a year, then returned to the US and graduated from James W. Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1991. At the US Air Force Academy, he joined the parachuting team and earned a BS in biology with a minor in Mandarin Chinese in 1995. He then earned an MS in cardiovascular physiology from Colorado State University in 1996, partly for research at NASA's Space Physiology Lab. He received his MD from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2002, completed a residency in emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center, and later earned an MHI from the University of Minnesota and an MPH from the University of Texas Medical Branch.

He finished a residency in aerospace medicine in 2008. Lindgren began working at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 2007, supporting ISS training in Russia and serving as deputy crew surgeon for STS-130 and Expedition 24. Selected as an astronaut candidate in June 2009, he trained with NASA Astronaut Group 20 and became eligible for flight assignments in November 2011. He later worked as a spacecraft communicator and served as lead for Expedition 30.

In 2015, he launched to the ISS on Soyuz TMA-17M as part of Expedition 44/45, performing two spacewalks with Scott Kelly. While aboard, he played the Great Highland bagpipes in space for the first time.

NASA career

Kjell N. Lindgren began working for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in 2007. He went on to support ISS training operation at Star City, Russia and became the deputy crew surgeon for STS-130 and Expedition 24. In June 2009, he was one of nine astronaut candidates selected by NASA out of 3500 applications and began training as part of NASA Astronaut Group 20. The nine Americans, as well as two Canadian Space Agency candidates and three JAXA candidates, started training at the Johnson Space Center in August 2009.

The 14 candidates carried trained in various different fields including T-38 flight training, Extravehicular activity training, survival, International Space Station operations and other various skills. The group completed their training and Lindgren and his 13 classmates became eligible for future flight assignments on November 4, 2011. In between finishing training, he worked in the Spacecraft Communicator and Extravehicular Activity branches of NASA, and he was the Spacecraft Communicator lead for Expedition 30.

From June 18, 2017, to June 27, 2017, Lindgren was commander of the NEEMO 22 mission to the Aquarius Reef Base, located 19 meters underwater off the coast of Florida. The NEEMO 22 mission focused on both exploration spacewalks and objectives related to the International Space Station and deep space missions. On July 22, 2015, Lindgren launched on his first mission to the ISS alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui onboard Soyuz TMA-17M.

Six hours later the trio docked to the ISS. On October 28, 2015, Lindgren ventured outside of the ISS with Scott Kelly for his first spacewalk. On November 6, 2015, Lindgren ventured outside the station with Kelly again for his second spacewalk. Over the course of the 7 hour and 48-minute spacewalk, the two astronauts worked to restore a portion of the ISS's cooling system to its primary configuration.

On December 11, 2015, he returned to Earth alongside Kononenko and Yui following 141 days in space. Lindgren served as the only member of the backup crew for the SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission. He was also the commander of the backup crew for SpaceX Crew-1. In February 2021, he was assigned as commander of SpaceX Crew-4, which was his second long-duration mission to the ISS.

Crew-4 launched on April 27, 2022 and docked later that day. It splashed down off the coast of Florida with Lindgren on board on October 14, 2022 after 170 days in orbit.

Personal life

Kjell Lindgren is married to Kristiana Lindgren and has three children. He has said that he enjoys running, scuba diving, reading, movies, photography, amateur astronomy, working with computers, and church activities. Lindgren is also a science fiction fan, and in 2015 was a Guest of Honor at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention while aboard the ISS. He participated in the Hugo Award ceremony as a guest presenter via videoconferencing, announcing Cixin Liu's win of the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

He was also a special guest at Worldcon in Helsinki 2017. In 2017, he also served as the Toastmaster for the Nebula Awards in Pittsburgh. Lindgren was a Boy Scout and attained the rank of Eagle Scout. During the 23rd World Scout Jamboree in Japan in 2015, Lindgren talked to a small group of Scouts via radio from the International Space Station.

Lindgren is a General class Ham Radio operator call sign KO5MOS. In October 2022, during his stay at the ISS, Lindgren talked live and direct to students from the school at the Argentine base Esperanza in Antarctica.