{"id":11762,"date":"2021-04-08T19:10:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T11:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-astronaut-two-cosmonauts-set-for-launch-to-space-station\/"},"modified":"2021-04-08T19:10:40","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T11:10:40","slug":"nasa-astronaut-two-cosmonauts-set-for-launch-to-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-astronaut-two-cosmonauts-set-for-launch-to-space-station\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut, two cosmonauts set for launch to space station"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, commander Oleg Novitskiy, and Russian flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov after a pressure check of their Sokol launch and entry suits at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 27. Credit: NASA\/GCTC\/Irina Spector<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts will ride a Soyuz ferry ship to the International Space Station early Friday, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.<\/p>\n

The launching comes just three days before the 60th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin\u2019s historic flight on April 12, 1961, to become the first man in space. More than 570 men and women have made the trip since then, fueling competition and then cooperation between Russia and the United States that has culminated in the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started, we were competing with each other and that was one of the reasons we were so successful at the beginning of human spaceflight,\u201d Vande Hei said at a pre-launch news conference. \u201cAnd as time went on, we realized that by working together, we could achieve even more. That\u2019s continuing to this day, and I hope that will continue into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kicking off replacement of the station\u2019s current seven-member crew, Vande Hei, Soyuz MS-18\/64S commander Oleg Novitskiy and flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. Friday (12:42 p.m. local time).<\/p>\n

Climbing directly into the plane of the space station\u2019s orbit, the Soyuz was expected to catch up with the space station in just two orbits, docking at the Earth-facing Rassvet module at 7:07 a.m.<\/p>\n

Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Soyuz MS-17\/63S commander Sergey Ryzhikov and his two crewmates, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Kate Rubins, along with SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The service structure is raised into position around the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft and its Soyuz booster following rollout to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The expanded 10-member crew will enjoy a week together before Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins undock and return to Earth aboard their own Soyuz, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 12:56 a.m. EDT on April 17 to close out a 185-day mission.<\/p>\n

Five days after that, at 6:11 a.m. on April 22, NASA and SpaceX plan to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ferry Crew-2 commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Japan\u2019s Akihiko Hoshide and ESA\u2019s Thomas Pesquet to the station, briefly boosting the lab\u2019s crew to 11.<\/p>\n

After helping their replacements get familiar with station systems, the SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts \u2014 Hopkins, Glover, Walker and Noguchi \u2014 will head for home, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida on April 28 to wrap up a 164-day flight, the first operational mission by a SpaceX Crew Dragon.<\/p>\n

And with that, the space station crew swap out will be complete. The Crew-2 astronauts and the Soyuz MS-18\/64S crew are expected to be replaced, in turn, in late September and mid October respectively.<\/p>\n

But Vande Hei, a last-minute addition to the latest Soyuz crew, does not know when he will be able to hitch a ride home. While his flight is officially scheduled to last six months, he could end up living aboard the space station for a full year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because NASA managers want to guarantee a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab to make sure a properly trained NASA astronaut is on board at all times to operate U.S. systems even if launches are interrupted or something forces a partial evacuation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan is for me to be on board for six months,\u201d Vande Hei said from Moscow in a pre-launch interview with CBS News. \u201cOf course, it\u2019s a very dynamic situation, so we try to make sure we\u2019re ready for anything. I certainly feel emotionally prepared to stay on orbit well longer than that six months that\u2019s planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cthere are a variety of things that could impact when I come back (but) I\u2019m also very certain that regardless of what happens, we\u2019ll make sure we have a U.S. presence continuously on the space station.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA wants to ensure the continued launch of American astronauts aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and Russian cosmonauts aboard U.S. ferry ships, even though the U.S. space agency funded development of commercial crew ships to end its sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the station.<\/p>\n

Russian cosmonauts are not trained to operate NASA\u2019s solar power system, computers, stabilizing gyroscopes and other systems. Likewise, U.S. astronauts are equally unprepared to operate Russian propulsion, docking and other mission-critical systems.<\/p>\n

If a medical emergency or some other crisis forced a Russian or NASA crew to make an unplanned departure, the crew members remaining behind, trained to operate U.S. or Russian systems \u2014 but not both \u2014 might not be able to maintain the station on their own.<\/p>\n

Likewise, NASA wants to protect against the possibility of a launch mishap or a major technical problem that could interrupt or suspend crew rotation flights.<\/p>\n

There are no available Soyuz seats in the near term \u2014 Rubins used NASA\u2019s last directly purchased seat \u2014 and in any case, NASA is no longer authorized to buy rides on Russian spacecraft. Vande Hei\u2019s seat was obtained through Houston-based Axiom Space in exchange for a future flight by a commercial astronaut on a NASA-sponsored ferry ship.<\/p>\n

NASA managers hope to work out an agreement with the Russian space agency to ensure crew continuity aboard the station by launching at least one NASA astronaut aboard each Soyuz flight and one cosmonaut aboard each U.S. commercial crew mission.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Vande Hei is prepared to stay in orbit however long it takes for a seat to open up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attitude we\u2019re taking is that every step of this (mission) means I\u2019m just that much closer to getting home, whether that be six months or longer than that,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife\u2019s really got a fantastic attitude. I\u2019ve deployed multiple times (but) for my family, this would be a record setter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, commander Oleg Novitskiy, and Russian flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov after a pressure check of their Sokol launch and entry suits at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 27. Credit: NASA\/GCTC\/Irina Spector NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts will ride […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1601,1719,1545,717,1771,25,1725,190],"class_list":["post-11762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-baikonur-cosmodrome","tag-expedition-65","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-international-space-station","tag-kazakhstan","tag-launch","tag-mark-vande-hei","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11762"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}