NASA plans to fly an astronaut on Russia’s next Soyuz mission to the International Space Station in April, a measure the agency said would ensure continued U.S. presence on the research outpost in the event of delays in the launch of SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon Flight.
A NASA astronaut could join two Russian cosmonauts on the Soyuz MS-18 mission, scheduled for April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russian commander Oleg Novitskiy, a veteran of two previous missions to the space station, will lead the triple crew. Two rookie cosmonauts – Pyotr Dubrov and Sergey Korsakov – trained to fly in the other two Soyuz seats.
NASA said it could obtain rights to at least one of the Soyuz seats on February 9 as a cover against possible delays from SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon launch to the space station, currently scheduled for April 20 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA wants to ensure that at least one US crew member is present in the runway complex at all times.
In a statement, NASA said the “additional seat” on the Soyuz crew’s upcoming rotation mission would give the space agency a backup plan in case the Crew Dragon’s launch is delayed. According to the Russian news agency Tass, the Russian space agency Roscosmos says it expects to ‘formalize’ an agreement to have an American astronaut fly on the mission.
April and May are expected to be busy months for crew rotations on the space station.
The Novitskiy crew will arrive at the space station from Baikonur shortly after their launch on April 9 and begin a week-long transfer with the departing Soyuz crew that docked at the space station last October. The crew of the Soyuz MS-17 – Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins – will leave the station on April 17 and head to Kazakhstan.
Four other members of the station’s current seven-member crew arrived aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft in November. That crew, led by NASA Commander Mike Hopkins, will be replaced by four astronauts on SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission departing Florida April 20.
Assuming a timely launch of the Crew-2 mission, Hopkins and crewmates Victor Glover, Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker will go to Earth around May 1, with the goal of making a splash at sea off the coast of Florida.
The Crew Dragon’s seven-month design life will expire in mid-June, meaning the Crew-2 mission will have to start by then to keep the space station manned with US astronauts. While there is no indication of a delay in Crew-2’s launch, schedules are common in space travel.
“NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 is expected to launch as scheduled on April 20,” NASA said in a statement Feb. 9. “However, if the mission’s launch is delayed or an event occurs while Crew-2 is in orbit is a premature return, NASA risks not having a US crew member aboard the International Space Station.”
There is also the unlikely scenario where a crew capsule has to leave the space station prematurely due to a health condition or technical failure. Space station astronauts and cosmonauts have to travel to and from the station in the same spacecraft, so such a situation could empty the outpost of all of its US or Russian crew members.
The Crew-2 astronauts will be led by NASA Commander Shane Kimbrough, who will be accompanied by pilot Megan McArthur, Japanese mission specialist Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
NASA has signed a contract with SpaceX and Boeing to develop the Crew Dragon and Starliner spacecraft to end America’s reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles to transport astronauts to and from the space station. The Starliner has not yet flown any astronauts and Boeing is planning a second unmanned test flight of the Starliner at the end of March, which will re-run a previous test flight in December 2019 that ended prematurely due to software problems.
If the Starliner demo flight goes well in March, Boeing plans to launch astronauts on a Starliner for the first time around September, followed by the start of regular crew transport.
SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission, led by Hopkins, is the company’s first operational Crew Dragon flight. SpaceX previously conducted successful unmanned and manned test flights on the Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2019 and 2020.
NASA officials have been saying for years that they want to continue flying American astronauts on Russian Soyuz missions. But instead, NASA pays cash payments directly to the Russian government, but in return wants to provide Russian cosmonauts with rides on SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner spaceships.
Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s directorate for manned space flights, told Spaceflight Now in November that the agency had finalized the text of a draft agreement with Roscosmos that will allow Russian cosmonauts to fly to the International Space Station on US crew capsules in 2021.
She said NASA wanted the deal in time for a Russian cosmonaut to fly on SpaceX’s Crew-3 mission scheduled for this fall. NASA has appointed three crew members to the Crew-3 mission, and a seat will remain open, likely for a Russian cosmonaut if the agencies approve a final agreement in time.
The agreement would allow all future crew missions from the US and Russia to the station to carry a crew member from the other partner.
The agreement will ensure that there is always a trained crew member on board the space station to operate the Russian portion of the outpost and the US On-Orbit Segment, or USOS, which includes US, Japanese, European and Canadian hardware. If the Russian Soyuz program or the US crew vehicles are grounded, crew members of the other international partners can still fly to the space station.
“At NASA, we have an expression that we often use: uneven redundancy. That’s what NASA says we always have a backup plan in place that ensures we have a way forward, even if we run into a problem with our initial approach, ”said Robyn Gatens, acting director of the International Space Station at NASA. headquarters. “We look forward to the next crew rotation on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, and we want to ensure that we can continue to maximize our use of the station and minimize any risk by having a US astronaut fly on the upcoming Spring Soyuz by providing in-kind services. “
NASA this week issued an invitation to request information from companies that could potentially secure a Soyuz seat on the April 9 launch. NASA has previously used Boeing as an intermediary to purchase Soyuz seats, and other space tourism companies – such as Axiom Space and Space Adventures – are able to act as intermediaries in such a deal.
The Verge reported on Thursday that NASA plans to purchase the Soyuz chair through Axiom in April.
“There is one established US Crew Vehicle (USCV) capability in the early stages of the operation, scheduled to fly this spring, and a second USCV provider in the late stages of development,” NASA wrote in the invitation. from February 9. to SpaceX and Boeing, respectively. “Experience has shown that new launch capabilities can experience unexpected delays or have difficulties in maintaining original schedules.
“Should additional crew transport capacity not be acquired, the result could be a period when there is no US presence on the ISS, reflecting ongoing research and technological development in the On-orbit Segment (USOS) of the United States, in addition to placing the ISS itself at risk because trained USG (US Government) crew members are required to maintain and operate hardware and to perform extravehicular activities (EVAS, or spacewalks) if necessary to make repairs to implement, ”said NASA.
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ Stefan1