Meet NASA Astronaut & Artemis Team Member Jonny Kim [Video]

NASA Portrait of astronaut Jonny Kim. Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is a member of the Artemis Team, a select group of astronauts charged with focusing on the development and training efforts for early Artemis missions.

Dr. Jonny Kim was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. He reported for duty in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an Astronaut Candidate. A U.S. Navy SEAL, Kim completed more than 100 combat operations and is the recipient of the Silver Star and Bronze Star with Combat “V.” Kim was commissioned as a naval officer through an enlisted-to-officer program and earned his degree in mathematics at the University of San Diego and a doctorate of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Kim enlisted in the Navy as a Seaman recruit after graduating high school in 2002. After completion of Hospital Corpsman “A” school training, he reported to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, CA. After completing his training at Naval Special Warfare, Kim reported to John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, NC for the Special Operations Combat Medic Course. He was assigned as a Special Warfare Operator to SEAL Team THREE Charlie Platoon in San Diego, California and obtained various qualifications including Military Freefall Parachutist, Combatant Diver (closed circuit rebreather), Naval Special Warfare Special Reconnaissance Scout and Sniper, and Advanced Special Operations Techniques.

Kim served as a Special Operations Combat Medic, sniper, navigator and point man on more than 100 combat operations spanning two deployments to the Middle East including Ramadi and Sadr City, Iraq. He was commissioned as a naval officer through the Navy’s enlisted-to-officer commissioning program, Seaman to Admiral-21, following graduation from the University of San Diego in 2012.

Upon graduation from Harvard Medical School in 2016, Kim began his medical internship with Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency. At the time of his astronaut selection in June 2017, Kim was a resident physician in emergency medicine with Partners Healthcare at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Kim remains on active duty as a Navy Lieutenant at NASA.

Through the Artemis program NASA and a coalition of international partners will return to the Moon to learn how to live on other worlds for the benefit of all. With Artemis missions NASA will send the first woman and the next man to the Moon in 2024 and about once per year thereafter.

Through the efforts of humans and robots, we will explore more of the Moon than ever before; to lead a journey of discovery that benefits our planet with life changing science, to use the Moon and its resources as a technology testbed to go even farther and to learn how to establish and sustain a human presence far beyond Earth.