NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei may spend a year in space after its April launch – and if so, he will welcome the opportunity, Vande Hei said Monday (March 15) at his first press conference since NASA last week. announced flight. .
Typically, astronauts spend about six and a half months on the International Space Station, living and working in orbit. But a separate project from NASA’s Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, could mean that Vande Hei has to stay in space longer before he can take a ride back to Earth. If so, that would be fine for him, he told reporters in a televised press conference on NASA TV on Monday.
“Honestly, for me it’s just a chance for a new life experience,” he said during the press conference, which took place practically from Star City, Russia, where he is preparing for the flight. “I’ve never been in space for more than about six months, so if someone tells me to stay in space for a year, I’ll find out what that feels like. I’m really excited about it.”
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Vande Hei has previously visited the Space Station, flying a Russian Soyuz vehicle to and from the Space Station in 2017 and 2018 to complete a six-month stay; that experience made a longer flight attractive, he said. “On the previous flight, it felt like every day was getting a little easier,” he said during the press conference. “I became more comfortable with things as time went on, I was much more familiar with my job.”
Vande Hei already embraces coincidence when it comes to his upcoming mission: He heard next month’s launch was only confirmed last week, along with the rest of the world, he said at the media event.
For the past decade, NASA astronauts have flown to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz capsules in chairs the desk buys from its counterpart, Roscosmos. Now NASA is starting to launch its astronauts on US commercial vehicles like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, but it won’t stop flying on Soyuz.
To that end, NASA has been hastily searching for a seat on April’s Soyuz flight, dubbed MS-18, in recent months, this time through Texas-based space tourism company Axiom Space rather than directly through Roscosmos. In exchange for the April launch, NASA will fly an Axiom-selected astronaut on an upcoming commercial flight, likely in 2023, according to a statement from the agency on the arrangements.
An extended stay would mark a second irregularity in Vande Hei’s mission prompted by planning on the Roscosmos side. The agency has teamed up with a Russian television channel to film a movie in space, requiring two people to be flown to the space station to film.
Previous Roscosmos statements have suggested this can happen in the fall. If that schedule is right, Vande Hei will have to wait for the next visiting Soyuz – MS-19 – to go home, rather than fly back to Earth in the same vehicle it was launched in, as astronauts usually do.
“It all depends … whether or not those tourists get on the spacecraft in the fall, because they would recline my seat, so I would have to wait longer for another seat,” Vande Hei said at the meeting. press conference. .
He has not indicated whether he will know the duration of his stay before launch; Christina Koch, the last NASA astronaut to conduct an extended mission, learned of her extension when she was already in orbit. (Koch spent 328 days in space in 2019 and 2020, attending the second longest mission for a US astronaut. Scott Kelly set the current record when he returned from a 340-day mission in 2016.)
“My perspective is that I will go back to work and instead of becoming a new employee who just shows up, I will be someone who worked there in the lab a few years ago,” said Vande Hei. “I will start a little better than the first time and I can continue with that job for longer, so hopefully I can contribute even more.”
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