The university known as the cradle of astronauts will soon send a few more folks to the final frontier.

Twenty-eight alumni of Indiana-based Purdue have flown to space or been selected for spaceflight. That impressive roster includes Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Roger Chaffee and Gus Grissom, as well as Adam Fuhrmann and Yuri Kubo, members of NASA's just-announced 2025 astronaut class.

And the list just got longer, for Purdue announced today (Sept. 23) that it's sending a team of researchers, students and alumni to suborbital space with Virgin Galactic in 2027, on a mission called Purdue 1.

"This mission with Purdue University is a powerful demonstration of what becomes possible when research institutions and educators gain direct access to the microgravity environment

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