| Serena Auñón-Chancellor | |
| Birth Name: | Serena Maria Auñón |
| Birth Date: | 9 April 1976 |
| Birth Place: | Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. |
| Spouse: | Jeff Chancellor |
| Type: | NASA astronaut |
| Time: | 196days, 17hours, 49minutes |
| Selection: | NASA Group 20 (2009) |
| Mission: | Soyuz MS-09 (Expedition 56/57) |
| Current Occupation: | Management astronaut |
Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor (born April 9, 1976) is an American physician, engineer, and NASA astronaut.[1] [2] [3] She visited the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 56/57. After returning, she transitioned to a management role within NASA, where she handles medical issues aboard the station.
Auñón-Chancellor attended Poudre High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. She holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University, an M.D. from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) in 2001, and an M.P.H. degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in 2006. She completed a three-year residency in internal medicine at UTMB in Galveston, Texas, in 2004, and then completed an additional year as Chief Resident. She also completed an aerospace medicine residency at UTMB. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Aerospace Medicine.
Auñón-Chancellor was hired by NASA as a flight surgeon and spent over nine months in Russia supporting medical operations for International Space Station astronauts.
She received the 2009 Julian E. Ward Memorial Award from the Aerospace Medical Association for her contributions to spaceflight crewmember clinical care and development of medical kits to support launch and landing in Kazakhstan.[4]
Auñón-Chancellor was selected as an astronaut candidate in June 2009.[1] She completed the astronaut candidacy training program in 2011.
As part of her training, she spent two months in Antarctica from 2010 to 2011 as part of the ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) expedition. The ANSMET expedition consisted of a 9-member systematic team and a 4-member reconnaissance team that explored new areas where future teams may go. Collectively they returned over 1200 meteorites.[5]
She served as the deputy crew surgeon for STS-127 and Expedition 22. She also serves as the deputy lead for Orion – Medical Operations.[4]
In June 2012, Auñón piloted a DeepWorker 2000 submersible as part of the NASA/NOAA NEEMO 16 underwater exploration mission off Key Largo, Florida.[6] [7]
In July 2015, Auñón-Chancellor participated as an aquanaut in the NEEMO 20 crew.[8]
In 2018 she spent 196days, 17hours and 49minutes in space aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 56 and 57, arriving aboard Soyuz MS-09. She represented NASA as a flight engineer from 6June to 20December 2018.
Since returning from her expedition to the ISS, Auñón-Chancellor has served as a Management Astronaut, covering medical issues and on-orbit support in the Astronaut Office.[9]
In January 2020, she released a study on an unnamed astronaut who had to treat their own deep vein thrombosis on the International Space Station.[10]
In 2021, Russian state-owned news service TASS published accusations from an anonymous source claiming that it was Auñón-Chancellor who was suffering from the deep vein thrombosis that she published her paper about in 2020 and that it provoked an acute psychological crisis (emotional breakdown) in space during Expedition 56 and in late August 2018, in an effort to return to Earth, sabotaged the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft by drilling a hole into its orbital module.[11]
The accusation was denied by NASA and officials say they knew the precise locations of the US astronauts before the leak occurred and at the moment it began. None were near the Russian segment where the Soyuz vehicle was docked. NASA said they shared this data with Russians.[12]
The accusations in 2021 came during a period of increased geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia.[13] [14] It also came weeks after a particularly embarrassing moment for Roscosmos; during the docking of the Nauka module its engines kept firing causing the entire space station to flip over one and a half times.
Auñón-Chancellor's research is concerned with the medical implications of space radiation exposure, including computer modelling of the radiation environment of a crewed orbiting spacecraft.[15] [16]
Auñón's father is Jorge Auñón, a Cuban exile who arrived in the United States in 1960; her mother is Margaret Auñón.
Auñón-Chancellor is married to physicist Jeff Chancellor[17] and has a step-daughter (from her husband's previous marriage).[18]
Auñón-Chancellor is a licensed amateur radio operator with the call sign of KG5TMT.[19] She earned her Technician Class license and was granted her callsign by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on June 2, 2017.[20] During the final weeks of her ISS mission, Auñón-Chancellor made random (unscheduled) ham radio contacts from the ISS, generally as the ISS made its Saturday morning and early afternoon (US Time) passes over the US.[21]
Auñón-Chancellor has received the following awards and honors:[22]