45 Years Ago: NASA Announces Ninth Astronaut Group

Nearly all of NASA’s ninth class of astronaut candidates, along with two European trainees, poses for photos in the briefing room in the public affairs facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on July 7, 1980.

Group 9 was announced on May 29, 1980; the candidates would go on to make history in spaceflight and at NASA. For example, Charles Bolden (kneeling at far right) traveled to orbit four times aboard the space shuttle between 1986 and 1994, then became the agency’s first African American administrator in 2009. Franklin Chang-Diaz (fifth from the right, standing) was the first Hispanic American to fly in space and Jerry Ross (middle, standing in the back) was the first person to be launched into space seven times.

Image credit: NASA