Nichole Ayers was selected by NASA to join the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class. She reported for duty in January 2022. The Colorado native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. She later earned a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University in Houston.

As an instructor in both the T-38A and F-22 Raptor, Ayers has flown missions all over the nation and the world. For her first spaceflight, Ayers served as the pilot of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, spending 146 days as a flight engineer during Expeditions 72 and 73 and completed one spacewalk, totaling 5 hours and 44 minutes.