SigEp brother among NASA’s newest astronaut recruits

After breaking records with more than 18,300 applications, NASA has chosen 12 women and men as the agency’s new astronaut candidates. Among the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class is SigEp brother and U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick, San Diego ’04.

Dominick, a Colorado native, attended the University of San Diego, where he joined the California Beta Beta Chapter and served as both vice president of finance and vice president of communications. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, he earned a master’s degree in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

According to NASA, Dominick will report for duty with the other candidates in August to begin two years of training. Upon completion, they will be assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office while awaiting a flight assignment. Then they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including: performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, or departing for deep space missions on NASA’s new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.