text: On Jan. 18, NASA announced that astronaut Jeanette Epps would not fly, as expected, to the International Space Station in June. The mission would have been historic, since she would have become the first African-American crewmember on the orbiting outpost. 
   
   The space agency hasn't released any information about why Epps was benched from her planned mission, saying only that "these decisions are personnel matters for which NASA doesn’t provide information," according to NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean. Epps will now work in the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center and await another possible flight assignment. 
   
   Epps' removal from her planned flight isn't without historic precedent. 
   
   NASA has benched astronauts before flights many times in its decades as a federal agency, and for many different reasons. 
   
   "Flight assignments have been changed often in the past at various stages of training for a variety of reasons," Dean said via email. 
   
   Specifically, quite a few astronauts have been removed from their missions for health reasons. 
   
   NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps. Image: NASA 
   
   NASA's Ken Mattingly was pulled from the Apollo 13 crew just a few days before their scheduled launch because he was exposed to German measles. 
   
   From the ground, Mattingly was part of the team that helped bring back the Apollo 13 crew to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded, putting the lives of the crew in serious danger and forcing them to abandon their planned moon landing. 
   
   Mattingly still earned a place in cinematic history, since he was portrayed by actor Gary Sinise in the movie Apollo 13. 
   
   "Long before Jeanette Epps was pulled from her upcoming space station expedition, astronauts such as Ken Mattingly in 1970 and Don Thomas in 2002 were reassigned due to medical issues, while Mark Lee was pulled from a 2001 space station assembly shuttle mission for reasons NASA never disclosed," space historian and editor of collectSPACE.com Robert Pearlman said in an interview. 
   
   "To their crewmates' credit, despite the interruptions, the missions went on as planned (or in the case of Apollo 13, went awry but at no fault of Mattingly's replacement, Jack Swigert)." 
   
   NASA also replaced Jeff Ashby in 1997 due to an illness in his family, and other astronauts have been removed due to other medical or personal issues. 
   
   "NASA invests a lot of time, effort and money in training their astronaut crews, and stresses teamwork throughout, so the decision to remove an astronaut from a flight is never taken lightly," Pearlman said. 
   
   Epps's 2018 mission was announced in 2017 and it immediately went viral. 
   
   News organizations profiled Epps and wrote about her expected upcoming flight, making the news of her reassignment all the more surprising. 
   
   She has not yet flown to space. 
   
   Epps was chosen as part of NASA's 2009 astronaut class as one of 14 candidates. 
   
   Her path to NASA is different from many other astronauts, however. 
   
   Epps started off as a NASA fellow and then worked at Ford Motor Company before spending seven years at the Central Intelligence Agency. 
   
   Epps was inspired to become an astronaut after watching the first class of women become NASA astronauts decades ago. 
   
   "It was about 1980, I was nine years old. My brother came home and he looked at my grades and my twin sisters' grades and he said, 'You know, you guys can probably become aerospace engineers or even astronauts,'" Epps said in a NASA video. 
   
   "And this was at the time that Sally Ride [the first American woman to fly in space] and a group of women were selected to become astronauts — the first time in history. So, he made that comment and I said, 'Wow, that would be so cool.'" ||||| The brother of a Syracuse-born astronaut said "oppressive racism and misogyny in NASA" is behind the administration's choice not to send Dr. Jeanette Epps to the International Space Station. 
   
   Henry Epps shared a MoveOn.org petition on his Facebook page and called for NASA to reinstate Epps to the mission, where she would be the first African-American to become a crew member on the ISS. 
   
   The petition, started yesterday, has about 120 signatures. Epps did not start the petition, but he and several other family members signed it. 
   
   "My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!" Henry Epps wrote on Facebook on Saturday night. 
   
   Epps, of Tennessee, and other family members in Delaware and Maryland could not be reached Sunday morning. Epps, like his sister, attended Corcoran High School, according to his Facebook page. 
   
   "We have lost all of the gains we gained over the past 40 years in one year? No more!" he said. "We cannot continue to tolerate what is going on in America but we must stand together and stand behind our people and ou(r) nation! Take a stand and sign the petition! Thank you!" 
   
   It was not clear from Epps' post whether he had spoken to his sister about why she was removed from the mission. 
   
   NASA officials have declined to describe why she was passed over, saying it is a "personnel matter." 
   
   Epps, a Le Moyne College graduate, was part of NASA 20th astronaut class, announced in 2009. She was one of nine selected out of 3,500 applicants. Epps had been assigned to serve as flight engineer for Expedition 56 and remained on board for Expedition 57, according to NASA. 
   
   The crew is set to go to the ISS in June and spend at least six months in space. 
   
   On Thursday, the administration announced that Serena Aunon-Chancellor, who previously was assigned to Expedition 58/59, was reassigned to the ISS mission. She's a surgeon who spent nine months in Russia supporting medical operations for ISS crew members, according to her biography. 
   
   Epps was born in Syracuse and attended Clary Middle School after Danforth. She graduated from Corcoran in 1988 and went on to 11 1/2 more years of schooling, beginning at Le Moyne College. She graduated with a degree in physics in 1992. She eventually earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. ||||| NASA’s Jeanette Epps was on track to become the first African-American International Space Station (ISS) crew member. However, on Thursday the space agency announced it was rearranging their scheduled line-ups and Epps would be replaced by Serena Auñón-Chancellor for the June mission. 
   
   It’s unclear exactly why she was bumped from the mission. These types of decisions are “personnel matters for which NASA doesn’t provide information,” spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz, said in an email, Newsweek previously reported. 
   
   But, Epps’ brother believes he has the answer to why she was released. 
   
   “My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!” Henry Epps wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday evening. 
   
   His post was accompanied by a link to a MoveOn.org petition which calls on NASA to reassign Epps to the mission. As of Sunday evening, the post had racked up more than 350 signatures. Epps’ brother didn’t start the online petition, but he and other family members signed it, NYup.com reports. 
   
   “My sister deserve a chance just life [sic] her white peers! This administration policies and culture is reprehensible against their stance against women and minorities in this nation. We have lost all of the gains we gained over the past 40 years in one year?No more!” he wrote on Facebook. “We cannot continue to tolerate what is going on in America but we must stand together and stand behind our people and out [sic] nation!” 
   
   A number of people who signed the petition wrote comments asking for NASA to offer a credible reason for why she was released. It’s important to note it’s not unusual for them to offer no explanation to the public when crews are reassigned. If there’s a medical reason, they’ll sometimes offer some information, but even in those cases, it’s very limited, according to Ars Technica. 
   
   Epps will now remain on the ground in Houston and work at the agency’s Johnson Space Center. She’ll also be considered for future space missions, NASA announced in a statement.
target: – Jeanette Epps was to make history when she set foot on the International Space Station in June, as the first African-American astronaut to do so. Emphasis on "was." NASA on Thursday announced a shake-up to its crew assignments, stating Serena Auñón-Chancellor would be bumped from her scheduled Expedition 58/59 to Expedition 56/57, where she would take Epps' place. Instead of Epps flipping to the later mission, she'll "return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to assume duties in the Astronaut Office and be considered for assignment to future missions," and Anne McClain will join the Expedition 58/59 crew. Newsweek reports that NASA doesn't elaborate on "personnel matters," but notes someone is floating a theory. "My sister Dr. Jeannette Epps has been fighting against oppressive racism and misogynist in NASA and now they are holding her back and allowing a Caucasian Astronaut to take her place!" brother Henry Epps posted on Facebook on Saturday. Mashable notes it's hardly unprecedented for an astronaut to be pulled from a mission, and outlines the reasons that have surfaced in past instances, including medical issues. A former NASA administrator tells Syracuse.com that the likelihood is high Epps will make it to space. "When [crew changes] do happen, the reassigned astronauts almost always fly on a later mission. The exceptions are very few and far between." Sean O'Keefe further speculates that Auñón-Chancellor's medical background might be better suited to the mission's human research experiments than Epps, who is an engineer. (An astronaut who made history died last month.)