page_title: Anne McClain
section_title: Military career
hierarchical_section_title: Anne McClain / Military career
caption_attribution_description: English: Expedition 56 backup crew member Anne McClain of NASA poses for pictures in the Kremlin gardens in Moscow May 14 as part of traditional pre-launch activities. McClain is serving as a backup to the prime crew, Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA, Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, who will launch June 6 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft for a six month mission on the International Space Station.
context_page_description: Anne Charlotte McClain is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, engineer and a NASA astronaut. Her call sign, "Annimal", dates back to her bruising rugby days; she also uses the call sign in her Twitter handle, AstroAnnimal. She was a Flight Engineer for Expedition 58/59 to the International Space Station.
context_section_description: Following her studies, McClain qualified as a Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot. She was deployed to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Cavalry Regiment at Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii. McClain rose through the ranks, starting as an Air Traffic Control Platoon Leader, Aviation Intermediate Maintenance Platoon Leader, to Detachment Commander.
  McClain was deployed to the Persian Gulf and flew 800 hours and 216 combat missions during the 15 months deployment as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
  In 2009, McClain participated in Aviation Captain's Career Course and was then assigned to 1st Battalion, 14th Aviation Regiment at Fort Rucker as the battalion operations officer and OH-58D instructor. In May 2010, she was appointed Commander of C Troop, 1st Battalion, 14th Aviation Regiment, responsible for the Army's initial entry training, instructor pilot training, and maintenance test pilot training in the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. She completed Command and General Staff College and the C-12 fixed wing multiengine qualification courses in 2011 and 2012.
  She also served as a command squadron intelligence officer. McClain graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in June 2013. In total, McClain has logged over 2,000 hours on various aircraft type including the Kiowa Warrior, the Beechcraft C-12 Huron, the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, and the Eurocopter UH-72 Lakota.
caption: McClain in Army Service Uniform in 2018
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