MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Dr. Frank Rubio, born in Los Angeles, grew up in El Salvador and Miami-Dade County.
NASA announced on Tuesday that the Miami Sunset Senior High School graduate, who went on to become a NASA astronaut and U.S. Army Colonel, had been selected for the Artemis III mission.
Rubio, 50, turned his acceptance speech into a gratitude list that included his wife, his four kids, family, friends, “NASA community,” engineers, flight controllers, directors, peers, and support staff.
“What an incredible blessing and an honor it is to be standing here representing all of you,” Rubio said.
Jared Isaacman, the 15th administrator of NASA, introduced Rubio as an “Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot, family medicine physician, and record-setting astronaut mission specialist.”
Rubio and his fellow crew members — Randy Bresnik, the NASA commander, Andre Douglas, NASA mission specialist, and the European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano — are preparing for a 2027 spaceflight around Earth ahead of the 2028 lunar landing.
Before joining the Johnson Space Center’s 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class, Rubio served in the Army as an aviator and a physician for over 28 years, and he was a West Point “Black Knights” parachute team member.
Rubio graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1998 and earned his doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2010.
Rubio’s deployments included Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and he was a battalion surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group in the U.S. Army when NASA selected him.
His long list of awards includes the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and Space Exploration Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters, and the Air Medal.
Another Artemis III astronaut, Andre Douglas, was born in Miami but raised in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Related story: NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts to test technology for a future moon landing
Related social media posts
.@USArmy Black Hawk helicopter pilot, family medicine physician, and record-setting astronaut Frank Rubio is joining Artemis III as a mission specialist. pic.twitter.com/3Uoz1ZbZG4
— NASA (@NASA) June 9, 2026
“What an incredible blessing and an honor it is to be standing here representing all of you.”
— NASA (@NASA) June 9, 2026
Artemis III mission specialist Frank Rubio takes a moment to thank his family and colleagues for their support. pic.twitter.com/zHqW5ipx9m
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