WASHINGTON — He had practiced it many times before, but this day in 2022 was different for Army astronaut Col. Frank Rubio as he walked to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
This time he was going to space.
“You realize this [spacecraft] has 300 tons of rocket fuel, and I’m about to get on it,” he said with a laugh. The good thing, he said, was they didn’t give him or his two colleagues, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, much time to think.
Before he knew it, he was strapped in. A calm came over him as he waited for the final countdown. All the preparation and training led to this moment. Then, liftoff!
The rocket thrust into the air at breakneck speeds as the G-force hit the crew in seconds. And then within minutes, they were in space.
“It's a pretty incredible ride to go from zero to 15,000 mph and soon after that you're at 17,000 mph,” Rubio said. “It's easy to say those numbers but until you're doing it, it's really hard to comprehend how incredible that is."
As amazing as the journey to space was, Rubio’s path through life has been equally as remarkable thanks to his desire to continuously improve.
"I don’t ever want to be stagnant,” he said. “I want to continue to grow and contribute. I think those things are what drive me to keep challenging myself."
Rubio was born in Los Angeles to a teenage, single mother who had difficulties raising him. She initially sent him to live with his grandmother in El Salvador until a civil war broke out in the country. He returned to America five years later to live with his mother in Miami.
"Together, we made things work,” he said. “Ultimately, it was still a challenge for her. She probably wasn't fully ready, but she did an amazing job of setting a positive example and showing me what hard work could do, and it turned out well."
As a kid, he enjoyed taking care of injured animals and helping people. He used that passion and the work ethic he learned from his mother to help him chase his dream of becoming a doctor.
That led him to the United States Military Academy for pre-medical school. While he was there, he took advantage of everything the school had to offer. He joined the cycling team, got scuba qualified and even joined the parachute team.
“I tried to do as much as I could because the opportunity was there,” he said. “If you’re lucky enough to be selected for a team, you just have to go all in and make the most of the opportunity.”
Near the end of his time at West Point, he got slightly burned out on the rigorous amounts of studying and the thought of four more years of school became unappealing. He decided to gain some practical leadership experience and become a helicopter pilot.
He served as the platoon leader for Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment flying the UH-60 Black Hawk for more than 600 combat flight hours during deployments to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He quickly fell in love with aviation and the Soldiers he served with, he said.
“[The Army] just pushes you to do things that are such a challenge, and you grow so much because of that,” he explained. “I absolutely would not change that for anything because it made me who I became after.”
He then went on to be the company commander of Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment where he deployed to Iraq for a year. The responsibility of being in charge during combat operations was a heavy weight to bear, Rubio said.
“That was really impactful in my life because you almost forget about the risk to you because you're so incredibly invested in the lives of those you're entrusted to lead,” he said. “But learning in that opportunity, I think shaped the rest of my career and helped me to be a much better leader later on.”
Those early years in the service also taught him how to deal with failure, learn from it and grow, he said.
After serving in the aviation community for several years, the calling to continue his dream of practicing medicine returned.
He resumed his studies and earned a doctorate from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 2010. He then served as a clinic supervisor, executive medicine provider and flight surgeon at Redstone Arsenal's Fox Army Health Center in Alabama, where he took care of retirees, Soldiers and their Families.
Following that stop, he became a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group. He used his training and previous combat experience to provide care for his patients.
“It made me a much more sympathetic and empathetic doctor,” he said. “It just feels a little bit different when someone comes into your clinic and talks to you about things you've already lived and you're able to be a lot more compassionate. Because of that, I think I was a much better doctor.”
Never one to let himself get too comfortable, Rubio acted on his love of adventure and applied to NASA after talking about it with a friend. The ability to explore science and technology while working on a mission for the benefit of mankind was too good an opportunity to pass up.
NASA selected him for the 2017 astronaut candidate class.
He spent the next several years training. It was a five-part process. He learned about the International Space Station and what it takes to maintain it, how to use the robotic arm on the station for spacewalks, how to move in the 300-pound spacesuit during a spacewalk, how to speak Russian and how to fly the T-38 Talon.
The biggest challenge for Rubio, believe it or not, was learning to fly the jet. He wasn’t used to the speed he needed to make decisions coming from a helicopter background.
It took a few months of hitting the flight simulator and putting in the work, but he eventually got the hang of it.
“It was very humbling as a senior pilot to come in and not be good at piloting things,” he explained. “Now, it’s one of my favorite things.”
The countless hours of training paid off when he and his crew launched to the station on Sept. 21, 2022, and were transferred to Expedition 68. They were joined by NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada as well as Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina. On board, the crew studied cardiovascular health in space, explored 3D tissue printing and worked on several other projects as they developed a daily routine.
The days started to pass by as Rubio and the crew stayed focused on the mission.
‘Every day you are touching world-class science that universities have worked years to get to the ISS,” he said. “You feel a little sense of responsibility to get it right for the team.”
The initial six-month trip was pushed into a yearlong stay following a space debris strike that caused the return capsule to lose all its coolant. Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin stayed aboard the ISS for Expedition 69 and were joined this time by NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg as well as United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
During his time in space, Rubio supported numerous research projects including particle vibration experiments and biological testing while also performing three spacewalks outside the station.
Then, after spending more than a year in space and logging more than 157 million miles, the three men finally returned to Earth Sept. 27, 2023. Rubio became the new record holder for the longest spaceflight for an American astronaut, something he said was not an individual achievement.
“I absolutely would not be here without the support of other people,” he explained. “Both my family and the Soldiers around me, peers, all those things make us who we are. I think it’s important to acknowledge all these accolades are really because a whole lot of people helped me and allowed me to get where I am.”
Last week, Rubio received the Army Astronaut Device during a ceremony at the Pentagon. The award is given to Army personnel who complete at least one operational mission in space. He is only the third active-duty Soldier authorized to wear the device, which was placed on his Senior Aviator Badge.
Rubio plans to continue supporting the mission at NASA and hopes to eventually return to space one day.
What started as a dream of becoming a doctor turned into an Army career filled with challenges and support from those around him.
“The team we get to be a part of in the Army is pretty amazing," he said. “What I had thought would be a five-year career has turned into 26-plus years and it's really because I've loved every part of it."
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