
A 36-year-old woman, born in Germany to Iranian parents, has become the first Iranian-American astronaut and hopes she can inspire others from similar backgrounds.

Jasmin 'Jaws' Moghbeli was one of 13 astronauts - 11 from NASA and two from CSA - and five people of color, who were the first candidates to graduate under the Artemis program on Friday in Houston, Texas.

The astronauts shook hands with former astronaut Patrick G. Forrester after walking across the stage at the first-ever public ceremony at Johnson Space Center and later posed for a portrait with Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

'I would love for everyone to be able to be inspired by everyone, but it is a little easier to be inspired by someone who looks like you or has something in common with you, so I do hope there is that influence,' she told AFP after graduating in NASA's latest cohort.

Marine Corps major, MIT graduate and college basketball player, Jasmin 'Jaws' Moghbeli, is the first Iranian-American astronaut

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, 36, (left) celebrates during astronaut graduation at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. She was born in Germany to Iranian parents and hopes she can inspire others from similar backgrounds

After being selected in 2017, the class completed training in spacewalking at NASA's underwater Neutral Buoyancy Lab (pictured), robotics, the systems of the International Space Station and piloting the T-38 training jet, plus Russian language lessons

2017 NASA Astronaut Candidate Moghbeli is pictured June 6, 2017 at the Ellington Field - Hangar 276, Tarmac

The ceremony honored a diverse and gender-balanced group of six women and seven men that completed more than two years of basic training.

The group, known as the 'Turtles', wore blue flight jumpsuits and took turns approaching the podium to receive their silver astronaut pins, as their fellow classmates paid tribute to their character.

The tradition of handing out pins dates back to the Mercury 7 astronauts who were selected in 1959, with participants receiving their gold pins once they complete their first spaceflights

The tradition of handing out pins dates back to the Mercury 7 astronauts who were selected in 1959, with participants receiving their gold pins once they complete their first spaceflights.

The Marine Corps major, MIT graduate and college basketball player earned her fierce nickname Jaws during her time as a decorated helicopter gunship pilot who flew more than 150 missions in Afghanistan.

She and her brother were born in Germany to Iranian parents, architecture students who had fled their native country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But Moghbeli grew up in Baldwin, New York, which she considers her hometown - and her story after that reads like an immigrant's fairy tale.

At 15, she attended an advanced space camp, cementing her ambition to one day reach for the stars.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied aeronautical engineering. But her parents were concerned to learn she then planned to become a military pilot (a well-trodden path to the astronaut corps).

Moghbeli signed up in 2005 - just four years after the September 11 attacks, and her parents were worried about what their daughter might face as a person of Middle Eastern heritage.

'But once I joined, they gave me absolute support,' she said, crediting the backing of her family, and later her partner Sam, whom she married three months ago, for her success.

They are the first to graduate since NASA announced the Artemis program to return to the Moon by 2024, this time on its south pole, as the United States plans to place the next man and first woman on lunar soil and set up an orbital space station.

Moghbeli (left) shakes hands with former astronaut Patrick G. Forrester during her astronaut graduation ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas Friday. The group received their silver astronaut pins, as their fellow classmates paid tribute to their character

Pictured (L-R) are NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, CSA astronaut Jennifer Sidey-Gibbon, NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara, Zena Cardman, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Bob Hines and Warren Hoburg

The 2017 Class of Astronauts poses for a portrait with Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz at the Johnson Space Center. Moghbeli was one of 13 astronauts - 11 from NASA and two from CSA- and five people of color, who were the first candidates to graduate under the Artemis program

An attendee looks at the astronaut class portraits during astronaut graduation. It was first-ever public ceremony

Part of the group's training therefore included studying the building blocks of that program, which are still being developed: the Space Launch System rocket, the Orion crew capsule and the gateway space station.

But NASA has already said that the crew of the first return Moon mission, Artemis 3, will be selected from previous graduates.

After being selected in 2017, the class completed training in spacewalking at NASA's underwater Neutral Buoyancy Lab, robotics, the systems of the International Space Station and piloting the T-38 training jet, plus Russian language lessons.

Following a brief US-Iranian rapprochement during the Obama years, tensions between the two countries have soared again under the current administration.

President Donald Trump tore up the landmark nuclear deal signed by his predecessor and added Iran to a list of mainly Muslim countries whose nationals are banned from entering the US.

And last week's killing by US forces of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani raised the specter of a broader conflict.

In this June 2017 photo, then-neophyte astronaut candidates including Jasmin Moghbeli (fourth from left) stop to pose while getting fitted for flight suits at Ellington Field near Johnson Space Center

She is pictured during her first of many suited runs in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in April 2018. She learned how to perform Extra-Vehicular Activities (spacewalks), calling it 'one of the coolest, but also most challenging', things she has ever done

April 3, 2018 she told Instagram followers: 'After having served as a Flight Line, Avionics, and Quality Assurance Officer in the Marine Corps, this is my first time getting to be on the other side and actually turning wrenches! Many of the skills we learn while performing maintenance on the T-38 jets carries over to the maintenance tasks astronauts perform on the #InternationalSpaceStation'

She captioned this March 2019 picture: 'When driving a bolt in space, it is necessary to think critically about how to brace yourself so your entire body doesn’t start spinning instead of the bolt!'

Pictured thawing cells on her hands in March 2019. Moghbeli said she doesn't feel that Iran's tensions with the US have changed how she's treated

But Moghbeli said she had personally not faced problems during her time in service.

'I haven't in any way felt that changed anything about how I'm treated,' she told AFP.

'In a post-September 11 world, did my parents think I was crazy? Yes, I'm pretty sure they did,' she said, but added that her family then gave her their full support.

'It's because of that that I'm here today, and I think everyone feels similarly, but -- that being said -- there will always be people out there that doubt.

'When I was a sixth grader and said I was going to become an astronaut, do you think everyone was like, "Yep, she's going to become an astronaut"? Probably not.'

She spoke fondly of close friendships forged during her military missions and astronaut training -- feelings that are clearly reciprocated.

At her NASA graduation ceremony, classmate Jonny Kim described Moghbeli as 'dependable,' 'resilient' and 'fierce,' in short, 'the perfect crewmate I'd go into the void of space with.'

Kim is himself a decorated Navy Seal and emergency physician. He and Moghbeli were two of the five people of color in the graduating class of 11, selected from a record-breaking 18,000 applicants.

Moghbeli answers a question during a live episode of the Administrator's monthly chat show, Watch This Space, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington

December 2018, she posted online: 'I got to wear the “pumpkin” suit for the first time today while evaluating the fit and functionality of some components aboard #NASA’s Orion Spacecraft with veteran astronaut @astro_kimbrough. Although the suit looks very similar to the ACES pressure suit worn by shuttle crew, the team has been working hard to design a suit optimized for the Orion mission. #newastronauts'

NASA astronaut candidate Jasmin Moghbeli poses for a portrait in the Systems Engineering Simulator, a real-time, crew-in-the-loop engineering simulator for the space station and advanced spaceflight programs, Tuesday, July 9, 2019

'When I heard about possibly being a NASA astronaut I thought that was a platform like no other where I could leave a huge impact on the next generation and also contribute to our nation's space exploration,' Kim told AFP.

The 2017 Class of Astronauts also include Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, CSA astronaut Jennifer Sidey-Gibbon, NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Loral O'Hara, Zena Cardman, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Bob Hines and Warren Hoburg.

Watkins joins only a handful of black women to complete the program.

The CSA's newest astronauts are Kutryk, a Royal Canadian Air Force lieutenant colonel, and Sidey-Gibbons who holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of Cambridge where she was working as an assistant professor in combustion in the Department of Engineering.

'They are the best of the best: They are highly qualified and very diverse, and they represent all of America,' said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

The group will become eligible for spaceflight, including assignments to the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and ultimately, missions to Mars, according to NASA.

Astronauts play an active role in the development of spacecraft, and the current group will eventually join the ranks of the approximately 500 people in history who have ventured into space.

This August 7, 2019, shows (top row, L-R) Matthew Dominick, Kayla Barron, Warren Hoburg, and Joshua Kutryk of CSA, (middle row, L-R) Bob Hines, Frank Rubio, Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons of CSA, Jasmin Moghbeli, and Jessica Watkins, (bottom row, L-R_) Raja Chari, Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman, and Loral OHara

NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins joins only a handful of black women to complete the program

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim (left) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Joshua Kutryk are introduced. Kim described Moghbeli as 'dependable,' 'resilient' and 'fierce,' in short, 'the perfect crewmate I'd go into the void of space with'

The 11 US astronauts bring the total number of NASA's corps up to 48.

Their diversity stands in contrast to the early years of space exploration, long dominated by white men (including all 12 people who have walked on the Moon), until Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983 and Guion Bluford the first black astronaut the same year.

It also includes Indian-American Raja Chari, an Air Force colonel and aeronautical engineer; Frank Rubio, a medical doctor and Blackhawk pilot.

As an astronaut, Moghbeli will need to draw upon her experiences and the close calls she faced both as a test pilot and later as a combat pilot, to think fast and mitigate the unique risks that come with space flight.

'One of the reasons I love working in human space exploration is, it's something we generally all agree on and unite on,' she said, citing two decades of close US-Russian cooperation on the International Space Station, despite the two countries' otherwise fraught ties.

'I think it is an area where we see diplomacy where we don't see it in other areas,' she said.

'I think it has an impact.'

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman (right) and Francisco Rubio hug after during astronaut graduation at Johnson Space Center on Friday

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine poses for a selfie with the Class of Astronauts on stage at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas