The oldest particular person ever to embark on a long-duration mission, a girl who later this yr will grow to be the world’s second most flight-experienced feminine astronaut and three first-time house vacationers gathered earlier than the media on Thursday to debate their forthcoming keep aboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS). Seasoned veterans Mike Barratt and Tracy Dyson—with 4 prior spaceflights and 4 spacewalks between them—ought to every go a cumulative one yr of off-planet expertise in 2024, while their Expedition 71 crewmates Matt Dominick, Jeanette Epps and Russia’s Aleksandr Grebenkin are set to start the primary missions of their careers.
Sixty-four-year-old doctor and flight surgeon Barratt passes fellow astronaut Tom Marshburn to grow to be the oldest particular person to fly a long-duration ISS increment. Chosen by NASA in July 2000, Barratt first served as a crewman on Expedition 19/20 between March and October 2009, throughout which he logged 199 days in orbit and accomplished a single session of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA), lasting 4 hours and 54 minutes.
While in orbit, Barratt and Expedition 20 crewmate Nicole Stott discovered of their project as Mission Specialists on STS-133, the ultimate voyage of shuttle Discovery which occurred in early 2011. On the finish of his second spaceflight, Barratt accrued 211 days, 11 hours and 46 minutes in house and circled the Dwelling Planet over 3,300 occasions.
Dyson, a 54-year-old bodily chemist and personal pilot, was chosen by NASA as an astronaut candidate in June 1998 and first flew as a Mission Specialist aboard shuttle Endeavour on STS-118 in August 2007. She later served aboard the ISS throughout Expeditions 23/24 between April and September 2010, getting back from her second house voyage with a cumulative 188 days, 19 hours and 13 minutes in orbit and 22 hours and 49 minutes of EVA time on three spacewalks.
Rounding out the quintet are three spacefaring first-timers. Matt Dominick, a 42-year-old Naval Aviator with over 1,600 flight hours in 28 various kinds of plane who accomplished two deployments flying the F/A-18 Tremendous Hornet throughout Operation Enduring Freedom, t6hen graduated as a take a look at pilot and served as a undertaking improvement flight take a look at officer on a number of navy applications. Chosen into NASA’s Astronaut Corps in June 2017, Dominick turns into the third member of his class to attract a spaceflight command on his first mission.
Fifty-three-year-old Jeanette Epps would be the final U.S. member of NASA’s June 2009 astronaut consumption to succeed in orbit. A former CIA expertise officer with a doctorate in aerospace engineering, she was initially assigned in January 2017 to fly a six-month ISS increment in June of the next yr, which could have made her the primary African-American long-duration house traveler.
However in January 2018, Epps was abruptly pulled from her mission for undisclosed reasons. She later served within the astronaut workplace’s Mission Assist Crew Department, with tasks overlaying Exploration, the Orion Crew Module (CM) and different points, earlier than being reassigned in September 2020 to Starliner-1, Boeing’s first Put up-Certification Mission (PCM) to the house station. However as Starliner’s Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT) slipped additional to the best, so did Starliner-1 and in August of last year Epps was reassigned once more to fly shoulder-to-shoulder with Dominick and Barratt.
Aleksandr Grebenkin, aged 41, turns into the fourth Russian cosmonaut to fly a Industrial Crew automobile when he launches shoulder-to-shoulder with Dominick, Barratt and Epps aboard SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour in late February as a member of Crew-8. A former plane engineer and Russian Air Pressure officer, Grebenkin entered his nation’s Cosmonaut Corps in August 2018 and accomplished coaching in December 2020.
In line with Steve Stich, NASA’s Industrial Crew Program Supervisor, Crew-8 is at present monitoring launch atop a brand-new Falcon 9 booster within the late February timeframe. Though ISS, SpaceX and agency-wide flight readiness opinions will start tomorrow, Stich and ISS Program Supervisor Joel Montalbano are cognizant of Intuitive Machines’ forthcoming IM-1 mission, a part of the Industrial Lunar Payload Providers (CLPS) program which is able to set a lander onto the Moon’s floor close to the lunar south.
As a result of timing calls for of assembly IM-1’s critically brief lunar “launch window”, the mission is presently focusing on a liftoff from the House Coast in mid-February. If it flies on time, Mr. Stich expects Crew-8 to fly as early as 29 February—the primary crewed mission in historical past to start on a Leap Day—or maybe 1 March, but when IM-1 succumbs to a lengthier delay or slips into the following lunar window Dominic, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin could discover themselves launching as quickly as 22 February.
Crew-8 will experience Endeavour, essentially the most flight-seasoned of SpaceX’s lively fleet of 4 operational Crew Dragons, which is able to grow to be the primary to succeed in a fifth orbital voyage. Endeavour first entered house on the historic Demo-2 mission between Could and August in 2020 and acquired her title from NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, who each flew shuttle Endeavour on their first flights.
She went on to log three extra missions, ferrying the 4 Crew-2 astronauts from america, France and Japan to the house station between April and November of 2021 on a 199-day voyage that set a brand new document for the longest single spaceflight ever undertaken by a U.S. crewed automobile. Extra lately, Endeavour supported Ax-1 in April 2022, the primary Personal Astronaut Mission (PAM) on behalf of Houston, Texas-headquartered AxiomSpace, Inc., and simply final yr she spent six months in house in assist of Crew-6.
All informed, Endeavour has logged greater than 466 cumulative days in house and accomplished over 7,400 orbits of the Dwelling Planet. Processing of the veteran ship concluded simply earlier than Christmas, when it underwent propellant checks and closing techniques closeouts. Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin visited the Kennedy House Heart (KSC) in Florida earlier in January to see their ship, donning their personalized SpaceX launch and entry fits to clamber aboard and consider environmental controls, audio loops and seat configuration.
Their Falcon 9 booster—an unflown core, whose tail-number is as-yet unknown, however seemingly B1083—arrived in Florida on 22 January. It is going to be mated with its second stage and Dragon Endeavour within the coming days.
Present plans are for Crew-8 to overlap with the incumbent Crew-7 staff—NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen of the European House Company (ESA), Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov and Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa—who’ve been aboard the ISS since late August. They are going to take pleasure in a quick “handover” interval lasting 5 to seven days, earlier than boarding Dragon Endurance and returning to a parachute-assisted splashdown off the Florida Coast in early March.
With their departure, Crew-8 will settle in with Expedition 70 Commander Oleg Kononenko, his Russian comrade Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara, who’ve been aboard the station since September. Soyuz MS-25 will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 21 March, carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, NASA’s Tracy Dyson and the primary Belarusian house traveler, Marina Vasilyevskaya.
With Kononenko and Chub anticipated to stay on the ISS for a full yr till September 2024, Novitsky and Vasilyevskaya will return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-24 after about ten days alongside O’Hara, leaving the “recent” Soyuz MS-25 crew ship docked to the station. With their departure, Expedition 71 will formally be underway, with Kononenko retaining his command to grow to be solely the second particular person to guide a year-long ISS expedition.
Crew-8 are focusing on a 180-day keep on the ISS, departing in late August, with Kononenko, Chub and Dyson remaining aboard by means of late September. That may see Barratt and Dyson every push by means of one full yr of cumulative space-time throughout their careers, doubtlessly positioning the latter—with round 375 complete days over her three missions—because the world’s second most flight-experienced feminine astronaut, behind Peggy Whitson.
Throughout at present’s media briefing, the crew was adamant that they think about themselves not as members of Crew-8 or Soyuz MS-25, however moderately as Expedition 71. “We’re sporting Expedition 71 shirts for one cause,” Dominick mentioned. “We’re one staff.”
Added Barratt: Evaluating Crew Dragon and Soyuz was like deciding “what commuter automobile you’re taking to work.” And for Epps, who has educated on Soyuz, Starliner and Crew Dragon throughout her NASA profession, the response was even easier. “Any house capsule,” she mentioned with a wizened grin, “that we are able to take to house is superb!”
Throughout their six months in orbit, Expedition 71 will welcome as many as three U.S. cargo ships from all three lively Industrial Resupply Providers (CRS) suppliers: a SpaceX Cargo Dragon in March and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s first Dream Chaser, probably in June, with a Northrop Grumman Corp. Cygnus later within the yr. 4 Russian Progress resupply freighters will launch or depart between June and August and the long-awaited Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT) of Boeing’s Starliner—carrying NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams for a one-to-two-week keep—is scheduled for mid-April.
Three Russian spacewalks are deliberate for early-to-midyear and Barratt teased about some “EVA content material added to our mission” within the final “only a few weeks”. NASA’s Rob Navias confirmed to AmericaSpace {that a} spacewalk beforehand slated to be carried out by Expedition 70’s O’Hara and Mogensen in February has moved “till later within the yr, because of the quantity of labor in February for the crewmembers on ISS”.
Mr. Navias added that NASA will announce subsequent week the astronauts and a single Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard Crew-9, the following SpaceX rotation mission to the house station in August.
