This Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021 photo provided by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital shows Hayley Arceneaux at the hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After beating bone cancer, Hayley Arceneaux figures rocketing into orbit on SpaceX's first private flight should be a piece of cosmic cake.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital announced Monday that the 29-year-old physician assistant — a former patient hired last spring — will launch later this year alongside a billionaire who's using his purchased spaceflight as a charitable fundraiser.
Arceneaux will become the youngest American in space — beating NASA record-holder Sally Ride by over two years — when she blasts off this fall with entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and two yet-to-be-chosen contest winners.
She'll also be the first to launch with a prosthesis. When she was 10, she had surgery at St. Jude to replace her knee and get a titanium rod in her left thigh bone. She still limps and suffers occasional leg pain, but has been cleared for flight by SpaceX. She'll serve as the crew's medical officer.
In this undated photo provided by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Hayley Arceneaux stands near a SpaceX rocket at the aerospace company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.
"My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel," Arceneaux said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It made me tough, and then also I think it really taught me to expect the unexpected and go along for the ride."
She wants to show her young patients and other cancer survivors that "the sky is not even the limit anymore."
"It's going to mean so much to these kids to see a survivor in space," she said.
Isaacman announced his space mission Feb. 1, pledging to raise $200 million for St. Jude, half of that his own contribution. As the flight's self-appointed commander, he offered one of the four SpaceX Dragon capsule seats to St. Jude.
Without alerting the staff, St. Jude chose Arceneaux from among the "scores" of hospital and fundraising employees who had once been patients and could represent the next generation, said Rick Shadyac, president of St. Jude's fundraising organization.
Arceneaux was at home in Memphis, Tennessee, when she got the "out of the blue" call in January asking if she'd represent St. Jude in space.
Her immediate response: "Yes! Yes! Please!" But first she wanted to run it past her mother in St. Francisville, Louisiana. (Her father died of kidney cancer in 2018.) Next she reached out to her brother and sister-in-law, both of them aerospace engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, who "reassured me how safe space travel is."
A lifelong space fan who embraces adventure, Arceneaux insists those who know her won't be surprised. She's plunged on a bungee swing in New Zealand and ridden camels in Morocco. And she loves roller-coasters.
Isaacman, who flies fighter jets for a hobby, considers her a perfect fit.
"It's not all supposed to be about getting people excited to be astronauts someday, which is certainly cool," Isaacman, 38, said last week. "It's also supposed to be about an inspiring message of what we can accomplish here on Earth."
He has two more crew members to select, and he plans to reveal them in March.
One will be a sweepstakes winner; anyone donating to St. Jude this month is eligible. So far, more than $9 million has come in, according to Shadyac. The other seat will go to a business owner who uses Shift4Payments, Isaacman's Allentown, Pennsylvania, credit card-processing company.
Liftoff is targeted around October at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, with the capsule orbiting Earth two to four days. He's not divulging the cost.
Photos: Remembering the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster
Jan. 28, 2021, marked the 35th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident that claimed all seven lives on board in 1986.
This photo provided by NASA shows the crew of space shuttle Challenger mission 51L. All seven members of the crew were killed when the shuttle exploded during launch on Jan. 28, 1986. Front row from left are Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee and Ronald E. McNair. Back row from left are Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA via AP)
In this Jan. 28, 1986, picture, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., shortly before it exploded with a crew of seven aboard. (AP Photo/Thom Baur)
In this Jan. 28, 1986, file photo, the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Bruce Weaver, File)
In this Jan. 28, 1986, file picture, two unidentified spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., react after they witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (AP Photo/File)
High school teacher Christa McAuliffe greets family and friends at Manchester Airport in New Hampshire on July 20, 1985, after she was announced as the first citizen to go up in space aboard the space shuttle. She was one of the seven crew members killed when the shuttle Challenger exploded during launch on Jan. 28, 1986. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
Space shuttle mission 51-L explodes after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Jan. 28, 1986, with a crew of seven aboard. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
In this Jan. 27, 1986, file picture, the crew members of space shuttle Challenger flight 51-L leave their quarters for the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. From foreground are commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spl. Judith Resnik, Mission Spl. Ronald McNair, Payload Spl. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spl. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Michael Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Four crew members of the space shuttle Challenger walk from their quarters at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., en route to the launch pad Jan. 28, 1986. Challenger exploded moments into the launch, killing all seven of the crew, including, from front: pilot Mike Smith, school teacher Christa McAuliffe, mission specialist Ellison Onizuka and payload specialist Gregory Jarvis. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The space shuttle orbiter Challenger is destroyed by an explosion after it lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Jan. 28, 1986. (AP photo/Steve Helber)
The American flag in the press site at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., flies at half-mast, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 1986, following the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. NASA said the crew of seven aboard the craft died in the explosion. Launch pad B is shown under the flag. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
Rev. Daniel Messier, right, dries the tears of Concord, New Hampshire, sixth-grader Tanya Lee at a memorial service for teacher Christa McAuliffe at St. John's Catholic Church in Concord, Jan. 29, 1986. McAuliffe died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
This file picture shows a drawing made on Jan. 31, 1986, by a first grade student whose class at the Our Lady of Lourdes School in Melbourne, Fla., was asked to draw what they thought happened to the space shuttle Challenger and the people aboard. (AP Photo/Thom Baur)
An unidentified student bows his head as he pauses next to an impromptu memorial set up outside Concord, New Hampshire, High School, Friday, Feb. 1, 1986, after a private service was conducted at the school for teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger explosion. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
The remains of one of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger are carried past an honor guard on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., on April 29, 1986. The remains of the seven astronauts killed in the shuttle explosion were brought to the base to be prepared for burial. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
NASA employees Estelle Coleman, left, and Bettye McNaughton, right, wipe tears from their eyes while observing a 73-second period of silence exactly one year after the Challenger astronauts perished 73 seconds into their flight. Some 14,000 workers came to a standstill at the space center to honor the Challenger disaster anniversary, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1987. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
In this Jan. 31, 1986, file photo, Coast Guardsmen prepare to hoist the fulcrum of one of the space shuttle Challenger's solid rocket boosters onto the deck of U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas during salvage operations off the Florida coast. The Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff. (AP Photo/File)
In this 1986 file photo, workers transport debris from the space shuttle Challenger, recovered after the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion, to a storage site at the Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/James Neihouse)
In this Jan. 28, 1986, file photo the space shuttle Challenger is destroyed by an explosion shortly after it lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., killing all seven crew members. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
In this Jan. 28, 2011, file photo, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Dick Scobee, commander of space shuttle Challenger, speaks in front of the Space Mirror Memorial during a remembrance ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of space shuttle Challenger disaster at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla. On the memorial behind her are the names of the astronauts who died aboard Challenger. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
In this 1986 file photo, members of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident walk past the solid rocket boosters and the external tank of a shuttle being fitted in the Vehicle Assembly building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Pool, File)
Parishioners stand in prayer during Mass on Feb. 2, 1986, at St. John's Church in Concord, New Hampshire, the hometown of Christa McAuliffe, who was killed in the Challenger space shuttle explosion. A photo of McAuliffe adorns the cover of the church service program. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
Linda Poole of Omaha, Neb., visits a memorial for the space shuttle Challenger at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Feb. 2, 2003. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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