Marcos Berríos reps Puerto Rico as newest NASA Artemis astronaut candidate

The Guaynabeño now is the second Puerto Rican astronaut—after Joseph Acaba—who could potentially go to the moon.

It’s official! Puerto Rican Marcos Berríos is an Artemis astronaut candidate, after graduating from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday.

The Guaynabeño completed a two-year training program and is one of NASA’s 12 new astronauts who may one day blast off on the next human mission to the Moon.

Now, Berríos is the second Puerto Rican astronaut with the possibility of going to the moon, after Joseph Acaba.

In fact, it was Acaba who gave the silver graduation pin to Berríos. The veteran astronaut is currently the director of the astronaut office at NASA.

Berríos has a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford and has logged over 1,400 hours of flight time in over 20 different aircraft. 

RELATED: A guide to spring’s must-see celestial events in Florida

Puerto Rico proudly celebrated the achievement of the new astronaut. Puerto Rican media traveled to Houston to cover the graduation. Among them was the renowned meteorologist Ada Monzón.

It was an emotional moment when students from Wesleyan Academy in Guaynabo, the school where Berríos studied, watched the graduation live.

NASA had planned to send four astronauts around the moon late this year, but pushed the flight back to September 2025.

The space agency then bumped the flight again from 2025 to September 2026, citing safety concerns with its own spacecraft, as well as development issues with the moonsuits and landers coming from private industry.

The flight will be the first human moon landing in more than 50 years.

AP contributed to this story.