The crowd grew in the Armstrong Hall atrium on the morning of September 15 as Loral O'Hara's launch time approached. In addition to faculty, staff and students, Purdues visiting Engineering Advisory Council took a break from the days activities to watch O'Hara (MSAAE '09) blast off on Soyuz MS-24 for her six-month mission to the International Space Station.

It was a tense eight minutes for AAE Professor William Anderson, O'Hara's friend and former faculty advisor. After the rocket stages had finished their burns, Anderson was visibly relieved — all smiles and cheer. O'Hara took her first spacewalk on November 1 with Expedition 70 crewmate Jasmin Moghbeli. It was only the fourth all-female spacewalk in history.

O'Hara was named a Purdue Outstanding Aerospace Engineer in 2020. Read a full profile on O'Hara in The Persistent Pursuit.

The Soyuz rocket is launched with Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (NASA/Bill Ingalls photo)

NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 flight engineer Loral O'Hara uses a portable glovebag to replace components on a biological printer, the BioFabrication Facility, that is testing the printing of organ-like tissues in microgravity. (NASA photo)

Soyuz MS-24 Launch Broadcast with Loral O'Hara

Spacewalk Broadcast with Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, Nov. 1, 2023

Loral O'Hara talks with Purdue students live from the ISS