NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson will make her third journey to orbit aboard a Russian spacecraft in 2024, becoming a member of beforehand introduced Russian and Belarussian crew members.
Tracy Dyson will probably be assigned to the MS-25 Soyuz spacecraft mission scheduled to launch to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) in March 2024 for a six-month mission, NASA announced on Friday (Sept. 15). Accompanying Dyson will probably be Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, every of whom will spend 12 days in orbit.
Dyson will return to Earth in fall 2024 with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub on MS-25; the duo simply launched to area Sept. 15 with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara aboard Soyuz MS-24. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will return dwelling in spring 2024 with O’Hara following the NASA astronaut’s six-month mission, whereas Kononenko and Chub will spend a few 12 months in area earlier than their return flight.
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NASA flies its astronauts aboard Soyuz {hardware} underneath an settlement with Roscosmos renewed in July 2022, which additionally allowed Russians aboard NASA-funded industrial crew autos for the primary time. The settlement supplies for no-cost seat exchanges between the area companies.
“Flying built-in crews ensures there are appropriately skilled crew members on board the station for important upkeep and spacewalks,” NASA officers stated in an emailed assertion on the time. “It additionally protects in opposition to contingencies reminiscent of an issue with any crew spacecraft, critical crew medical points or an emergency aboard the station that requires a crew and the car they’re assigned to return to Earth earlier than deliberate.”
Dyson’s Expedition 70/71 mission will probably be her third area tour. The chemist by coaching has spent 188 days in area, beginning with a 12-day tour on area shuttle mission Endeavour’s STS-118 mission in 2007, then 174 days as flight engineer for Expedition 23/24 in 2010. She additionally carried out three contingency spacewalks (unplanned spacewalks essential for important repairs) in 2010 to restore a failed pump module for an exterior coolant system, and made the primary American Signal Language tackle from area.
Novitskiy has already been to area 3 times for Expeditions 33/34, Expeditions 50/51 and Expeditions 64/65, accumulating 531 days in orbit. He additionally acted within the Russian area movie “The Problem,” which was shot on the ISS with movie director Klim Shipenko and star Yulia Peresil throughout their brief area expedition in 2021.
Vasilevskaya, who’s a flight attendant, was assigned to MS-25 in Could alongside Kononenko, according to a report from Russian state media outlet TASS, citing area company Roscosmos. She would be the first Belarussian in area following the number of the primary astronaut class introduced in December 2022, in accordance with Belarus media reports.
Belarus is a detailed ally of Russia, together with within the latter’s internationally condemned invasion of Ukraine that commenced in February 2022 and remains to be ongoing. Belarus (an authoritarian republic that borders Ukraine) has been impartial of Russia because the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, however maintains shut “political and financial ties” with Russia, in accordance with the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook.
NASA has maintained the ISS relationship with Russia underneath U.S. authorities coverage recommendation, however most different worldwide Russian area partnerships are not any extra. Outstanding examples embrace the European Area Company pivoting away from Russia with its ExoMars mission, Russian-made rocket engines not being offered to American corporations, and Russian-built Soyuz rockets now not launching with French launch supplier Arianespace.
