A Korean-American was picked by the US space agency as a new astronaut, the US Embassy in Seoul announced Monday.

Jonny Kim was one of 12 new astronaut candidates chosen from among 18,000 applicants for the class of 2017 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, it said.

Kim trained as a Navy SEAL and earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School.

NASA introduced its new astronaut candidates Wednesday at Johnson Space Center in Houston, the US.

The candidates will complete two years of training before they are eligible to be assigned to a mission, it said.

The training includes learning how to safely operate systems aboard the International Space Station, mastering the skills to complete spacewalks and learning the official languages used in space -- Russian and English.

“We wish you good luck in space, Astronaut Jonny Kim!” the US Embassy said in a post on Facebook.

Mechanical engineer Yi So-yeon was South Korea’s first astronaut and became the 49th woman to travel to space in 2008.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)