Jessica Meir

• 1. Roots In Rural Maine

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  Jessica Ulrika Meir was born in Caribou, Maine. Her father Josef H. Meir arrived from Baghdad, Iraq in 1925. His family fled antisemitism and moved to British Mandatory Palestine before he studied medicine at the American University of Beirut during the 1948 Arab, Israeli War. He later completed his medical studies at the University of Geneva while working as a physician in Sweden. There he met Ulla-Britt Karlsson, a nurse from Västerås who grew up Christian. The couple moved to the United States for Josef's residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They settled in Caribou when he took a job there. Meir identifies as culturally Jewish despite her mother not converting to Judaism. She attended synagogue and had a bat mitzvah while growing up. Stars shone brightly over rural Maine where she spent her childhood.

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• 2. Diving With Penguins

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  Meir earned a Ph.D. in marine biology in 2009 from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Her research focused on emperor penguins and northern elephant seals. She performed field work at Penguin Ranch on McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. Scuba divers swam alongside emperor penguins under the ice to study their diving abilities. She also tracked elephant seals diving in the Pacific Ocean off Northern California. Later she raised bar-headed geese at the University of British Columbia. These birds migrate over the Himalayas and tolerate low oxygen levels during flight. A controlled environment allowed scientists to study their high-altitude tolerance. This comparative physiology work laid the foundation for her future space missions. The extreme environments she studied mirrored conditions astronauts might face in deep space or on other planets.

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• 3. Training Underwater And In Caves

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  In September 2002, Meir served as an aquanaut on NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 4. The mission took place inside Aquarius, an undersea research laboratory four miles offshore from Key Largo. Crew members spent five days saturation diving to simulate working under extreme environmental conditions. Hurricane Isadore delayed the start of the mission. Tropical Storm Lili threatened the crew three days into the dive but eventually weakened. They completed the full five-day duration despite the weather threats. Meir was leaning toward a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology or astrobiology at that time. Marine biology suited the NEEMO mission well. She hoped to combine these interests into one specific topic of study. In 2016 she participated in ESA CAVES training alongside Ricky Arnold and Sergei Korsakov. International astronauts trained together in a space-analogue cave environment. This preparation helped her prepare for selection into NASA Astronaut Group 21 in June 2013.

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• 4. The First All-Female Spacewalk

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  On the 18th of October 2019, Jessica Meir performed her first spacewalk with Christina Koch. They replaced a faulty Battery Charging Discharging Unit on the International Space Station. The unit had unexpectedly failed to activate. Newly installed lithium-ion batteries could not provide additional power without this repair. Three other scheduled spacewalks were postponed to make room for their task. The spacewalk lasted seven hours and 17 minutes. It marked the first all-female spacewalk in history. President Donald Trump called the astronauts during the event. He mistakenly announced it as the first time a woman was outside the station. Meir corrected him after the call ended. The failure of the battery unit forced a change in operational schedules. Her work ensured the station continued receiving power from its new systems. This historic moment occurred while nine people lived aboard the ISS due to a unique docking period.

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• 5. Expeditions And Return To Earth

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  Meir launched aboard Soyuz MS-15 on the 25th of September 2019. She served as flight engineer during Expedition 61 and 62. The crew included Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and Hazza Al Mansouri from the United Arab Emirates. Soyuz MS-15 docked at the end of Expedition 60 creating an unusual nine-person presence on orbit. Al Mansouri became the first person from his country to fly in space. He returned eight days later with Aleksey Ovchinin and Nick Hague. Meir stayed behind for Expedition 62 which began the 3rd of October 2019. Most of that increment operated as a three-person crew until the 9th of April 2020. Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner joined by Christopher Cassidy arrived then. A six-person crew conducted experiments on muscle tone in space. Meir and Andrew Morgan participated in live conferences with students from Maine. They also appeared on Some Good News hosted by John Krasinski. On the 17th of April 2020, she returned to Earth near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Her total time in space reached 205 days.

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• 6. Dual Citizenship And Heritage

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  Meir holds both American and Swedish citizenship through her mother Ulla-Britt Karlsson. She is technically the first Swedish female citizen holder in space. Christer Fuglesang was the second Swedish citizen overall before her. During her time aboard the station she brought personal items representing her heritage. An Israeli flag flew inside the spacecraft alongside novelty socks featuring Stars of David and menorahs. Her father Josef H. Meir was born in Baghdad but his family left Iraq due to antisemitism. Most relatives from his side reside in Israel today. Meir visited Israel twice: once as a teenager with her parents and brother. The second visit occurred in 2016 when she gave a talk at Haifa's International Space University summer session. She took pictures of Israel from orbit during that mission. Her ability to speak Swedish added another layer to her international identity. English and Russian were required for astronaut training but Swedish remained part of her daily life.

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