Kayla Barron
Commander, USN; NASA Astronaut
Kayla Barron is a Naval Academy graduate, submarine officer, and NASA astronaut who spent 177 days aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 66.
Biography
Kayla Barron was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in a family with roots in the Pacific Northwest near the Hanford nuclear site. She entered the Naval Academy and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering. Her graduation year was itself historic: the Navy's policy change allowing women to serve aboard submarines took effect in 2010, and Barron was among the first women to qualify for and serve on a submarine.
After the Academy, Barron attended the Navy's Nuclear Power School in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and completed submarine officer training, qualifying to serve aboard ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). She was assigned to USS Maine (SSBN-741), a nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarine homeported in Bangor, Washington. As a submarine officer, she stood watch as a qualified Officer of the Deck underwater and served in a crew that operates one of the most capable and consequential weapons systems in the U.S. arsenal.
In 2015, Barron was selected to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Navy's science and engineering graduate program, earning a Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering. She was working as an MIT research assistant when NASA selected her in August 2017 as a member of Astronaut Group 22 — one of 12 candidates selected from more than 18,300 applicants, the most competitive astronaut selection in NASA history.
After two years of astronaut candidate training at Johnson Space Center, Barron was certified as a NASA astronaut in January 2020. She launched to the International Space Station on November 10, 2021, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule as part of the Crew-3 mission. She served as a mission specialist on Expedition 66, spending 177 days in orbit conducting scientific experiments, maintaining ISS systems, and performing a spacewalk. She returned to Earth on May 6, 2022. She is assigned to future missions and remains active in NASA's astronaut corps.
Major Achievements
Among the First Women to Serve on U.S. Submarines (2010–2015) Barron was a pioneer in the integration of women into submarine service — a community that had been exclusively male since the founding of the submarine force — serving as a qualified Officer of the Deck on USS Maine.
NASA Astronaut Selection, Group 22 (2017) Barron was selected from more than 18,300 applicants — the largest applicant pool in NASA history — as one of 12 astronaut candidates, representing the intersection of academic excellence, operational experience, and personal character that NASA's selection process demands.
Expedition 66 — International Space Station (2021–2022) Barron spent 177 days aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 66, conducting scientific research, maintaining systems, and performing a spacewalk — contributing to ongoing research in biology, physics, and Earth observation that forms the foundation of long-duration spaceflight.
Master's Degree in Nuclear Engineering, MIT Barron's MIT graduate work in nuclear engineering complemented her submarine qualification, representing the combination of operational and academic achievement that characterizes the most complete Naval Academy graduates.
Inspiration for the Next Generation As one of the first women in submarine service and the first woman from the Naval Academy to serve in space, Barron represents a generation of USNA graduates for whom every warfare community and every frontier is open — and who demonstrate daily that the Academy's standards, applied equally, produce excellent officers regardless of gender.
Connection to Academy Values
Kayla Barron's career from the Naval Academy to the International Space Station is the most direct line the Academy has drawn in recent decades between its core mission — "develop midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically" — and the frontiers of human achievement. She qualified on nuclear submarines, earned a graduate degree in nuclear engineering from MIT, was selected for the most competitive astronaut cohort in NASA history, and spent six months in space. Every step required the technical excellence, physical conditioning, and moral character that the Academy spends four years building.
Her service as one of the first women on U.S. submarines also represents the Naval Academy at a historical inflection point. The submarine community's integration of women was not symbolic — it demanded the same qualification standards, the same physical endurance, and the same professional excellence as every other submarine officer. Barron's career is evidence that the Academy's standards produce what they promise regardless of the identity of the officer who meets them.
The Naval Academy's mission statement says it develops midshipmen "who will serve the Navy and Marine Corps with distinction." Barron expanded that definition — to the ISS, to low Earth orbit, and to a generation of midshipmen who grew up knowing that the frontiers of naval service include outer space.
