NASA has introduced its eighth astronaut crew with SpaceX.
The Crew-8 astronauts who will launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will embrace NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (commander), Michael Barratt (pilot), and Jeanette Epps (mission specialist), together with Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin.
The quartet will fly to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) in early 2024, NASA officers stated on Aug. 4. A earlier NASA assertion put the launch date no earlier than Feb. 2024. They would be the aid crew for Crew-7, which can ship one other foursome to house no sooner than Aug. 25.
Associated: SpaceX launches Crew-6 astronaut mission to house station for NASA
Three of the Crew-8 astronauts are on their first mission, whereas this shall be Barratt’s third journey following flights in 2009 (ISS Expeditions 19-20) and 2011 (the house shuttle’s STS-133).
Crew-8 would be the eighth crewed operational mission by SpaceX, which is a business crew vendor that sends astronauts to the ISS on NASA’s behalf.
Epps would be the second Black girl to have a long-duration mission on the ISS, following the mission of Jessica Watkins in 2022. Epps was pulled late within the coaching from one other ISS crew that flew in 2018, however was instantly made eligible for different assignments.
She subsequent labored on growth of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, and was reassigned from the debut Starliner-1 crewed launch after tech delays arose.
Starliner would be the second business crew car for NASA and could be able to fly astronauts in 2023, however a serious replace on the spacecraft is anticipated Monday (Aug. 7) and a brand new flight date could also be introduced at the moment.
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