Anne McClain

Anne Charlotte McClain was born in 1979 in Spokane, Washington, and was drawn to flying from an early age. She earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, then studied in the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar, adding a master's in aerospace engineering from the University of Bath and a master's in international relations from the University of Bristol. Commissioned into the U.S. Army, she became a decorated aviator, flying the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior on combat tours and accumulating hundreds of hours of flight time before graduating from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. A former rugby player who was a member of the U.S. Women's National Team player pool, McClain was selected by NASA in 2013 as one of eight members of that year's astronaut class.

McClain has flown two long-duration missions to the International Space Station. Her first began on December 3, 2018, when she launched aboard Soyuz MS-11 to serve as a flight engineer on Expedition 58/59. During that stay she conducted her first two spacewalks; she and Christina Koch had been slated to perform what would have been the first all-female spacewalk in March 2019, but the walk was reconfigured after McClain recommended against it, having concluded after her earlier excursion that a medium-size spacesuit torso fit her better and only one such suit was readily configured aboard the station. She returned to Earth in June 2019 with roughly 200 days in orbit. McClain's second mission launched on March 14, 2025, when she commanded SpaceX Crew-10 aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance, a flight that also cleared the way for the delayed Boeing Starliner crew to be ferried home. Serving as commander during Expedition 72/73, she carried out another spacewalk on May 1, 2025 alongside crewmate Nichole Ayers, and landed on August 9, 2025 after about 148 days aloft.

Across her two flights McClain has logged well over 300 days in space and three spacewalks totaling roughly 19 hours. Her career reflects the modern astronaut path of blending military aviation, advanced engineering, and international collaboration, and her candid public explanation of the 2019 spacewalk decision offered a widely cited example of crew safety taking precedence over milestone symbolism. As an active NASA astronaut and an experienced mission commander who trained to operate alongside Russian crews, she remains part of the corps eligible for future assignments in the era of commercial crew flights and NASA's Artemis campaign, and she has been an outspoken advocate for STEM education and for women in aviation and spaceflight.