Roscosmos
NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have officially agreed to swap seats on four upcoming missions to the International Space Station. The first missions – with a Russian in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and an American in Soyuz vehicles – will fly in September.
“Flying integrated crews ensure that there are properly trained crew members on the station for basic maintenance and spacewalks,” NASA spokesman Josh Finch said in a statement. “It also protects against contingencies such as a problem with any crew spacecraft, serious crew medical issues, or a station emergency that requires crew and their assigned vehicle to return to Earth earlier than planned.”
As expected, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will fly alongside cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin on the Soyuz MS-22 mission, which is scheduled to launch on September 21 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In addition, NASA’s Loral O’Hara will fly with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub on the Soyuz MS-23 mission next spring.
Meanwhile, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata on the Crew-5 mission in September. Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will join NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg as part of the Crew-6 mission next spring.
“The no-funds agreement includes transportation to and from the International Space Station and comprehensive mission support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, flight operations, landing and crew rescue services,” Finch said.
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The announcement came on Friday morning, shortly after the Kremlin announced that Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin had been ousted. Former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov will replace Rogozin. During his four-year tenure, Rogozin had an extremely rocky relationship with his Western counterparts and always seemed more interested in currying favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin than working to advance the space station effort.
The timing of Friday’s announcement was coincidental, a source said. However, NASA will not mourn the loss of Rogozin, who has become increasingly bellicose over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has made several threats about Russian involvement in the station. NASA officials said they maintain a good working relationship with other senior officials within Roscosmos, which helped them push through the job swap deal despite Rogozin’s messy leadership.
Embedded crews have been the norm throughout the International Space Station program and are an important symbol of cooperation between Russia and the United States despite geopolitical tensions. A Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, was the first Russian to fly in a US spacecraft, aboard the NASA space shuttle in 1994. A year later, NASA astronaut Norman Thagard flew to the Mir space station in a Soyuz vehicle.
After the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, NASA had to rely on Russia to transport the crew to the space station. Although Russia ultimately charged NASA about $90 million for a seat, the country held up its end of the bargain by providing reliable transportation. However, NASA no longer needs Russia for this, with Crew Dragon coming online as an operational spacecraft. Kikina will become the first Russian to launch on an American vehicle other than the Space Shuttle.
