As NASA prepares to launch another commercial mission with a Russian cosmonaut on board, the agency says it has yet to work out an agreement with Roscosmos for future crew exchanges.
At a Jan. 25 briefing, agency officials said they are moving forward with plans to launch the Crew-6 Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station on Feb. 26 at 2:07 a.m. ET. The spacecraft will deliver NASA astronauts Steven Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roskosmos cosmonaut Andriy Fedyaev to the station.
Fedyaev will be the second Russian cosmonaut to fly on Crew Dragon, after Anna Kikina, who launched on Crew-5 in October 2022 and will return from the station in early March. These flights were possible thanks to barter agreement on places concluded in July 2022 , which also allowed American astronauts to fly on Soyuz spacecraft. NASA has long sought so-called “integrated crews” for visiting vehicles to ensure that both Americans and Russians are on the station if the Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are unavailable for an extended period.
At the time of the announcement, NASA said the deal covers the flights of Kikina and Fedyaev on Crew Dragon and NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Loral O’Hara on Soyuz. Rubio launched the Soyuz MS-22 in September 2022, but damage to that spacecraft in December will extend its stay along with its two Russian crew members, as Roscosmos replaces it with an uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 that launches on February 20.
This would delay O’Hara’s flight, which was originally scheduled for March with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Mykola Chub, likely to fall on the Soyuz MS-24. However, NASA managers said the agency has not yet finalized plans for future integrated crews.
“Right now, we’re still working with Roskosmos on the exchange, which will take place this fall,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager. “We haven’t finished the fall yet, but we’re continuing to work in that direction.”
He and others said they want to continue swapping seats between Soyuz and commercial missions. “The integrated crew and the integrated crew strategy and planning helped us to really be able to create the most robust strategy possible” to address the Soyuz MS-22 problem, said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations.
In a separate briefing on January 25, Bowen, the Crew-6 commander, approved the continued use of integrated crews. “I think it’s an advantage for all of us.”
An intense mission
It is planned that crew-6 will spend six months on the ISS. A full schedule of exploration activities is planned, as well as a spacewalk at the end of their stay to install the station’s final set of new solar panels.
Crew-6 will also see a high frequency of vehicle visits. That will begin with the Dragon cargo mission, SpaceX CRS-27, which is scheduled to launch about 12 days after Crew-6, a schedule Montalbano said could be disrupted if there are delays in Crew-5’s return. The Northrop Grumman Cygnus NG-19 cargo mission will begin in early April.
This will be followed by two crewed missions that will make short-term visits. A crewed test of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, with NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, is currently scheduled for mid-April. The Starliner crew capsule docked with its service module last week in Florida.
“We’re really looking forward” to the Starliner, Bowen said. Having two companies capable of transporting astronauts to the station “will change the way we look at spaceflight.”
Later in the second quarter, there will be a visit by Ax-2, the second private mission by Axiom Space astronauts. On January 20, NASA announced that it and other ISS partners had approved a crew for the mission, which will be led by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and piloted by Axiom customer John Shoffner.
NASA’s statement did not release information about the other two people who flew on Ax-2, saying only that the two mission specialists “will be announced at a later date.” It is believed that they were astronauts from Saudi Arabia according to with an agreement between Axiom Space and the Saudi Space Commission announced in September 2022 . A NASA official confirmed at the committee’s November meeting that Saudi astronauts will fly on the Ax-2 and have already begun training .
Bowen said he and Crew-6 spoke with Whitson and Shoffner about the upcoming Ax-2 mission. “We think it’s going to be a great opportunity, a great flight when they come to visit,” he said. The Axe-2 mission will spend about a week on the station. “They have a great plan for their mission and we will do everything we can to support them.”
Following the Ax-2, another SpaceX Dragon cargo will deliver solar panels. Hoburg said it will take two or three spacewalks to install the final pair of arrays that will boost the station’s power.
“We’re going to be busy,” Bowen said. “We’re going to be tired, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
