NASA is accepting applications for its next class of astronaut candidates until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, December 3, 2026, and its requirements give pilots a route in through flight time, starting at 750 hours as pilot-in-command in high-performance jet aircraft.

In a news release dated November 7, 2026, NASA said the new class will join as America returns to the Moon, builds the Moon Base and prepares for the first crewed Mars missions. The agency expects to make its final selection in late 2027, when training of the next astronaut candidates would begin.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the release: “This is an extraordinary time to join NASA’s astronaut corps.” He said selectees could walk on the Moon, work at the Moon Base and help pioneer systems for Mars. Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson added: “The window is open. The mission is waiting.”

What NASA asks of applicants

The basic requirements are U.S. citizenship and a master’s degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field, such as engineering, biological science, physical science or computer science, from an accredited institution. NASA lists other ways to meet the degree requirement: at least two years of doctoral work in those fields or in mathematics, or a Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Physician Assistant, Doctor of Nursing Practice, Family Nurse Practitioner or related medical degree.

Test pilots have their own path. Completion of, or current enrollment in, a nationally recognized Test Pilot School program also counts, provided it is completed by July 2027. Applicants whose only advanced qualification is Test Pilot School also need a STEM bachelor’s degree.

Flight hours and experience

Applicants need at least three years of related professional experience after the qualifying degree. NASA lists pilot experience as the alternative, with three thresholds depending on the aircraft flown:

• High-performance jet aircraft: 750 hours as pilot-in-command.
• Other fixed-wing aircraft: 1,500 total flight hours, including 750 as pilot-in-command.
• Rotary-wing aircraft: 1,000 total flight hours, including 300 as pilot-in-command.

Medical doctors may count residency training toward experience if it is completed by July 2027. All candidates must pass NASA’s long-duration astronaut flight physical and demonstrate strong leadership, teamwork and communication skills. Those selected will study spacewalking, lunar geology and high-performance aircraft operations, among other subjects.

The 2025 class and the pilots in it

NASA last opened applications in 2024, with a window that ran from March 5 to April 16, 2024, according to the agency’s astronaut selection timeline. It received more than 8,000 applications. On September 22, 2025, NASA introduced the 10 members of its 2025 class, the agency’s 24th astronaut class, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are completing nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments to low Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars.

Flight test backgrounds run through that class. Katherine Spies, a former Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and experimental test pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours, was director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation when she was selected. Rebecca Lawler, a former Navy P-3 pilot and experimental test pilot with more than 2,800 flight hours, was a test pilot for United Airlines.

The military aviators in the class include U.S. Air Force Maj. Adam Fuhrmann, with more than 2,100 flight hours in 27 aircraft including the F-16 and F-35, and Maj. Cameron Jones, with more than 1,600 flight hours, mostly in the F-22 Raptor. U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Erin Overcash, a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet pilot, has 249 carrier arrested landings. U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Ben Bailey, also a Naval Test Pilot School graduate, was doing developmental testing on UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook helicopters at the time of selection.

The 2025 class training plan, as NASA described it, covers International Space Station operations, Artemis missions, robotics, land and water survival, geology, simulated spacewalks and high-performance jet flying. Since the 1960s, NASA has selected 370 people as astronaut candidates, and the agency has 32 active astronauts, according to the November 7 release.

What comes next for applicants

NASA’s astronaut selection timeline, which the agency labels tentative, sets application review from December 2026 to April 2027. Initial interviewees would visit Johnson Space Center in spring 2027 for interviews and selection assessments, and final interviewees in summer 2027. The Astronaut Candidate Class of 2027 would be announced in fall 2027 and report to Johnson in winter 2027/2028. NASA says the schedule may change and could be extended or accelerated based on the number of applicants.

The release ties the new class to lunar surface work. NASA said it will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions near the lunar South Pole, and that Artemis is expected to establish an enduring human presence on the Moon and build toward the first crewed Mars mission. AirPro News has covered NASA’s updated Moon Base strategy and the restructured Artemis program.

Scott Tingle, chief astronaut and chair of the Astronaut Selection Board at Johnson Space Center, said becoming an astronaut is “more than a career opportunity.” He said the next candidates “could help write history while inspiring future scientists, engineers, and explorers.”

The U.S. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) has signed a $150 million conditional loan commitment with Rocket Lab to help raise the flight rate of its reusable Neutron rocket. The commitment, announced on November 9, 2026, follows a $150 million conditional commitment to Stoke Space Technologies on October 26, 2026, for a second launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

In its November 9 press release, the department said the Rocket Lab loan is intended to support a national security priority: scaling U.S. space launch capabilities and supporting economic resiliency. Neither commitment is final. Both companies must complete further financial, legal, technical, investment and due diligence steps before financial close, according to the two releases.

What the Rocket Lab loan would pay for

The commitment is with Rocket Lab USA, Inc., the principal operating subsidiary of Rocket Lab Corporation (NASDAQ: RKLB). The department said the loan would support Rocket Lab’s efforts to increase Neutron’s flight rate beyond first launch to meet commercial and national security demand for access to space.

The release sets out what the money would support. The proposed loan would support faster vehicle delivery and processing, and allow Rocket Lab to expand its fleet of maritime vessels with additional equipment for Neutron recovery and transport. It would also fund manufacturing upgrades to increase production of composite structures and engines, and infrastructure that would reduce turnaround time between launches once the reusable rocket makes its operational debut.

The department describes Neutron as a reusable launch vehicle designed to deliver payloads of approximately 13,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit, built for constellation deployment, national security payloads and future interplanetary missions. It said Neutron would give the U.S. government a new medium-lift launch platform.

Peter F. Anderson, Senior Vice President (Investments) at OSC, said the commitment “would enable Rocket Lab to create more launch opportunities for commercial and government customers using its Neutron rocket.” He added that it would strengthen U.S. launch capacity “with a repeatable and reliable new space launch platform.”

The earlier Stoke Space commitment

The October 26 commitment with Stoke Space, a U.S.-based company developing fully reusable rockets, would support construction of a second launchpad at its existing launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The department said the OSC loan would sit alongside private capital. Stoke has also raised private funding, including a $1 billion Series E round.

Jordan Sebold, Senior Managing Director (Investments) at OSC, said Stoke’s existing launch complex supports its Nova Pathfinder medium-lift rocket, while the new launchpad would support the systems and facilities required for the larger Nova Block 2 rocket, which is in development. He said the added infrastructure would enhance the capacity and resilience of the commercial space industrial base.

David A. Lorch, Director of the Office of Strategic Capital and Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg, said the Stoke commitment aligns with President Donald J. Trump’s National Space Transportation Policy, “which calls for expanded U.S. launch infrastructure.” The release states that space launch is a designated critical technology category.

Conditions before any money moves

Both releases use the same structure: a conditional commitment, followed by financial, legal, technical, investment, due diligence and other requirements the company must meet before financial close. Neither release gives an interest rate, a loan term or a target date for closing.

Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, was quoted in both announcements. “I applaud the Office of Strategic Capital for investing in critical space launch capabilities,” he said of the Rocket Lab commitment, adding that the transaction supports a domestic launch network needed for national security. On Stoke, he said fulfilling President Trump’s mandate for American space superiority “requires scaling commercial launch capacity for our warriors at the Space Force.”

For Rocket Lab, the release ties the money to the period after Neutron’s first launch: the funded infrastructure is meant to shorten turnaround once the rocket makes its operational debut. For Stoke, it is tied to a new pad for a rocket still in development. In both cases, the next milestone the department names is financial close.

NASA has flown its Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) payload on an Alta-X drone through simulated lunar descent and landing maneuvers, with the system mapping terrain and diverting the drone to a safer spot when a targeted area was unsafe. The flights took place on August 27, 2026, at Rogers Dry Lake near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

NASA described the results in an article published November 4, 2026, presenting the tests as a demonstration of technology meant to help spacecraft navigate autonomously to safe landing sites on the Moon and other planets. Project manager Davis Adams said, “This flight test is the culmination of almost a decade of work, for the SPLICE project.”

How the drone tests worked

According to NASA, SPLICE used an advanced guidance system during the tests to map the terrain and assess potential landing areas. If the targeted area was unsafe, the system diverted the drone to a safer location. It generates high-resolution digital elevation maps from light-detection and sensor data.

Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston developed the SPLICE payload and worked with specialists at NASA Armstrong to integrate, test and fly it on the Alta-X in June and July. NASA said those earlier flights verified communications, data handling, telemetry and command-and-control performance, and prepared the system for a full-scale test at Voyager Technologies in Mojave, California.

NASA photos from July 15, 2026, show Adams confirming that SPLICE was communicating with the Alta-X during hover maneuvers, with small uncrewed aircraft pilot Justin Link and chief pilot Justin Hall on the test team. Adams said the flight raised the technology readiness level of SPLICE, preparing it for future robotic and crewed lunar flights. He added that validation of its guidance and navigation systems applies to terrestrial, lunar and Martian descent and landing missions.

A system built for small landing zones

In a September 17, 2020 article, NASA said SPLICE was being developed under the Game Changing Development program of its Space Technology Mission Directorate, and described it as a suite combining laser sensors, a camera, a high-speed computer and algorithms that find a designated landing area, identify hazards and adjust course. NASA said the system should let spacecraft avoid boulders and craters within landing areas about half the size of a football field.

The same article set out how far landing precision has come. The Apollo 11 landing ellipse was about 11 miles by 3 miles, with astronauts piloting the lander, and the ellipse for the Curiosity rover in 2012 was 12 miles by 4 miles. NASA said pinpoint landing would open areas previously considered too hazardous for unpiloted landings and let supply missions deliver cargo to one location instead of spreading it over miles.

The 2020 article listed four main subsystems: terrain relative navigation, navigation Doppler lidar, a descent and landing computer, and a hazard detection lidar. Terrain relative navigation compares camera images, taken at up to 10 pictures per second, against preloaded satellite images and a landmark database, while the Doppler lidar’s laser beams measure velocity and range 20 times per second. At the time, NASA said three of the four subsystems would have their first integrated test flight on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

NASA’s Flight Opportunities project, based at Armstrong, supported early SPLICE flight testing, including a 2019 test of a descent altitude and landing trajectory similar to a lunar mission and a 2020 demonstration of two NASA-developed precision landing sensor systems. John Carson, NASA’s technical integration manager for precision landing, said in 2020 that “Safely and precisely landing on another world still has many challenges,” and that no commercial technology yet existed to buy for the job.

Where SPLICE fits in NASA’s Moon Base plans

NASA said it has worked with several commercial lunar lander providers to implement versions of SPLICE, and that some landers planned for upcoming Moon Base missions use data NASA collected while developing systems like it to achieve soft touchdowns on the lunar surface. The agency added that it is coordinating with industry on use of the guidance system, and that some companies are evaluating its navigation capabilities for precision landing and potential autonomous surface mobility.

On November 7, 2026, NASA selected eight companies for its CLPS 2 contract for Commercial Lunar Payload Services: Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, ispace-U.S., Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems, SpaceX and Voyager Technologies. NASA said CLPS 2 is a 10-year master contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion, under which the companies can compete for future lunar deliveries and will manage, build and operate landers carrying NASA payloads. Voyager Technologies, the host of the planned full-scale SPLICE test in Mojave, is on that list.

The same announcement expanded the May 2026 lunar terrain vehicle task order with Blue Origin to include delivery of the PROMISE rover to the lunar South Pole, and described missions that will send highly mobile drones, including NASA’s MoonFall survey mission, to the South Pole before astronauts arrive.

For SPLICE itself, the next steps NASA has named are the full-scale test at Voyager Technologies and the release of the guidance system through the NASA software catalog in fall 2026.