Jasmin Moghbeli
Marine Corps test pilot and NASA astronaut.
via Wikipedia: Jasmin Moghbeli · see source
Jasmin Moghbeli is an American Marine Corps test pilot and NASA astronaut who commanded SpaceX Crew-7 and served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station. She was born in West Germany in 1983 and moved to the United States as a baby. She studied aerospace engineering at MIT, where she also played three sports. Moghbeli speaks Persian and English, and picked up Russian during her astronaut training.
Quick Facts
- Born
- 24 June 1983
- Birthplace
- Bad Nauheim, West Germany
- Spouse
- Sam Wald
- Children
- 2
- Education
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS), Naval Postgraduate School (MS)
- Time
- 199 days, 2 hours and 20 minutes
- Rank
- Lieutenant Colonel, USMC
- Selection
- NASA Group 22 (2017)
Facts from the source article.
Early life and education
Jasmin Moghbeli was born in Bad Nauheim, West Germany on June 24, 1983. Her father, Kamran (Kamy) Moghbeli, was an architect who immigrated to Germany in 1980 from Tehran, Iran. The family lived in Bad Nauheim until the beginning of 1984, when they immigrated to the United States. Her mother is Fereshta (Fery) Moghbeli, and she has an older brother, Kaveh, a specialist in pulmonary and intensive care medicine. Moghbeli attended Baldwin Senior High School in New York. She earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering with information technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and played volleyball, lacrosse, and basketball for the MIT Engineers.
Military career
Moghbeli was commissioned as an officer in the United States Marine Corps in 2005, and trained to become an AH-1 Super Cobra pilot. While in service with the Marine Corps, she deployed overseas three times and completed 150 combat missions, including sorties in Afghanistan. She received a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California. She attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, becoming a helicopter test pilot with VMX-1 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona. As of 2019, she has accumulated over 2,000 hours of flight time.
NASA career
In June 2017, Moghbeli was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 22, and subsequently began her two-year training. In January 2020, she graduated alongside 13 others in the NASA Astronaut Candidate Training Program, officially making her 'eligible for spaceflight, including assignments to the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and ultimately, missions to Mars.' In March 2022, she was assigned as commander of the SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station. The mission, her first flight in space, launched to the space station on August 26, 2023. On March 12, 2024, the mission landed off the coast of Florida after spending 199 days in space and orbiting Earth 3,184 times. In September 2025, Moghbeli participated in the ESA CAVES 2025 course held in the Matese mountains in the Italian Apennines.
Personal life
Moghbeli is married to Sam Wald. They are the parents of twin girls. Wald is Jewish, and they celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah at home; Moghbeli celebrated Hanukkah in space as well. She is proud of her American and Persian heritage, noting: 'Reflecting on this past year, I stand here so proud of my Persian heritage but also incredibly proud to be an American.' She still celebrates Nowruz (Persian New Year). Space exploration was an aspiration for Moghbeli as a child. During school, she wrote a sixth-grade book report on the first woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.
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