American record-holder for the longest space flight at 371 days.

Francisco Rubio was born on December 11^th, 1975 in Los Angeles, CA, and grew up in El Salvador with his mother and grandmother until immigrating to Miami, FL in 1981 during the Salvadoran Civil War. His mother raised him to value hard work, and he attributes his success to it. Rubio earned a B.S. in international relations from the U.S. Military Academy in 1998 (West Point) and served as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot during appointments in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. After his military service, Rubio earned an M.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 2010 and accepted a residency at Martin Army Community Hospital in Fort Benning, GA as a battalion surgeon. In 2017, Rubio applied and was accepted to as NASA astronaut candidate. From 2022-2023, Rubio would break the record for the longest American spaceflight aboard the ISS when damage to a return spacecraft extended his trip by 6 months. During this flight, Rubio study the synthesis of graphene aerogel, the expansion of hematopoietic stem cells, and the effects on the human body in zero-gravity.