A spacewalk planned for Thursday outside the International Space Station was called off late Wednesday because of a “medical concern” with an unidentified crew member, NASA said in a statement.
An update shortly before midnight said the agency was exploring “all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew 11’s mission.”
Spacewalkers Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman.
NASA
“These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely,” the update said. “We will provide further updates within the next 24 hours.”
While NASA did not identify the astronaut in question or explain the medical issue — standard practice due to privacy concerns — the agency said “the matter involved a single crew member who is stable.”
Crew 11 commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov launched to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship on August. 1.
Going into the new year, the crew expected to remain in space until their replacements arrive in mid-February. Crew 11’s return to Earth is expected around Feb. 20. That’s still the official plan.
In the meantime, Cardman, 38, and Fincke, 58, a veteran of nine spacewalks on earlier missions, were planning to venture outside the station Thursday to finish building a truss needed to support a set of roll-out solar arrays and to carry out other planned maintenance.
A second spacewalk by two yet-to-be-announced astronauts was planned for next week.
Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Chris Williams planned to assist Fincke and Cardman in suiting up and preparing the tools and equipment that would be needed outside the space station.
NASA
But NASA called off the the first spacewalk earlier Wednesday, saying “the agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon. Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member.”
“The situation is stable. NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later.”
In a brief space-to-ground radio exchange just after 2:30 p.m. EST, Yui called mission control in Houston and asked for a private medical conference, or PMC.
Mission control replied that a PMC, using a private radio channel, would be set up momentarily. Yui then asked if a flight surgeon was available and if flight controllers had a live camera view from inside the station.
“Houston, do we still have, like, a camera view in Node 2, uh, 3, lab?” Yui asked.
“We don’t have any internal cameras right now, but we can put the lab view in if you’d like,” the mission control communicator replied.
“I appreciate that,” Yui replied. He then asked: “Do you have like a crew surgeon? … A flight surgeon?”
No additional exchanges were heard. Later Wednesday, NASA’s space station audio stream, normally carried live around-the-clock on YouTube, went silent without explanation.
American astronomer-turned-medical physicist and now NASA astronaut Chris Williams joined two Russian cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz ferry ship Thursday for a Thanksgiving Day flight to the International Space Station.
With commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov at the controls of the Soyuz MS-28/74S spacecraft, flanked on his left by flight engineer Sergey Mikaev and on the right by Williams, the crew’s Soyuz 2.1a booster roared to life at 4:27 a.m. Eastern and smoothly climbed away from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Nine minutes and 45 seconds later, the Soyuz spacecraft was released from the booster’s upper stage, its two solar wings unfolded and the crew set off in pursuit of the space station. If all goes well, the automated two-orbit rendezvous will end with a docking at the lab’s Earth-facing Rassvet module at 7:38 a.m. Eastern.
A Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut on a flight to the International Space Station.
Roscosmos/NASA
Williams, a former volunteer fire fighter and emergency medical technician who went on to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics from MIT, was a board-certified medical physicist at Harvard Medical School when he was selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps in 2021.
He and flight engineer Mikaev were making their first space flight on Thursday, while Kud-Sverchkov is a seasoned veteran who logged 185 days aboard the space station in 2020-2021.
Roscosmos/NASA
“It’s a really great crew,” Williams said in a NASA interview. “Sergey and Sergey are both just absolutely wonderful people, really kind, super interested, super intellectually curious, which is really fun. Had a lot of really, really great discussions, just talking and talking about things.
“It’s been been wonderful to both spend some time with them over in Star City, and also to be able to spend some time with them in Houston through our training.”
The Soyuz MS-28/74S crew. Left to right: NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergey Mikayev.
NASA
The Soyuz MS-28 crew is replacing Soyuz MS-27/73S commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Alexey Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who were launched to the space station last April. They plan to return to Earth on Dec. 9 to wrap up their eight-month stay on the ISS.
Also on hand to welcome Williams and his crewmates aboard the station: NASA Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, Michael Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. They launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last August and plan to come home in February or March, after their replacements — Crew 12 — arrive.
All 11 station fliers planned to gather for a traditional welcome aboard video call to mission managers and family back in Moscow before a safety briefing and the start of familiarization with the space station’s complex systems.
Williams, an Eagle Scout with a private pilot’s license, is a standout among super achievers.
After graduating from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in physics, he was doing radio astronomy research on the way to a Ph.D. and, “down the street from my house, there was a volunteer fire department. And I was like, oh, that sounds like something that could be kind of like fun and interesting to do.”
“So I started volunteering. Got trained as an EMT and a firefighter, and started just sort of doing that on a volunteer basis. And I found that I really liked it. I got a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that … at the end of the shift, I would have really made a very direct and immediate positive impact on somebody’s life.”
He kept that up throughout graduate school. Then, as he was winding up his doctorate in astrophysics, Williams said he ran into a doctor he knew at a party who told him there was “a big need for physicists in medicine, in particular, in radiation oncology, where we use radiation to treat cancer.”
The Soyuz MS-28 crew will be welcomed aboard the space station by the lab’s current seven-member crew. Back row, left to right: Crew 11 cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, Soyuz MS-27 astronaut Jonny Kim, Soyuz MS-27 commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Soyuz MS-27 flight engineer Alexey Zubritsky and Japanese Crew 11 astronaut Kimiya Yui; Front row, left to right: Crew 11 flight engineer Mike Fincke and Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman.
NASA
He talked with a few other people, including one who had been an astronomer before switching to medical physics, and “I was struck by how much of what I knew and had learned as an astronomer would actually be useful and apply very directly to medicine.”
“A lot of the math behind (medical) imaging is the exact same math that actually you use in a radio telescope to make an image,” Williams said. “It was kind of neat to see that image processing techniques that I’d used as (a radio astronomer) actually carried over pretty directly into medicine.”
At the time of his selection as an astronaut, Williams was on the staff at Harvard Medical School as a clinical physicist and researcher. He is the second member of the 2021 class of astronauts to fly in space, getting assigned to the Soyuz MS-28 mission shortly after finishing astronaut candidate training.
He said the training for launch on a Russian spacecraft was difficult, primarily because of the travel required. He credited his wife, Aubrey, with keeping the family’s life on an even keel throughout.
As for what he looks forward to during his eight-month stay in space, Williams repeated a familiar theme.
“I’ve got a lot of different goals, but I think the biggest one, and the thing I’m most excited about, is to truly be able to put my training into practice and to do a really good job to push forward the science and research that we’re doing on on the space station.”
“I think it’s incredibly important. I think it’s incredibly interesting and incredibly inspiring, and I feel really lucky to have the opportunity to contribute to that.”
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A tech billionaire performed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth on Thursday, a high-risk endeavor reserved for professional astronauts – until now.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company’s brand new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring spacewalk also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out once Isaacman was safely back inside.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew began preparing for the endeavor soon after blasting into orbit on Tuesday.
This spacewalk was simple and quick – less than two hours – compared with the drawn-out affairs conducted by NASA. Astronauts at the International Space Station often need to move across the sprawling complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and lugging gear. Station spacewalks can last seven to eight hours.
Isaacman emerged first from the hatch, joining a small elite group of spacewalkers who until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.
“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman said as the capsule soared above the South Pacific. Cameras on board caught his silhouette, waist high at the hatch, with the blue Earth beneath.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments based in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The commercial spacewalk was the main focus of the five-day flight financed by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s company, and the culmination of years of development geared toward settling Mars and other planets.
All four on board donned the new spacewalking suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They launched on Tuesday from Florida, rocketing farther from Earth than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. The orbit was reduced by half – to 460 miles (740 kilometers) – for the spacewalk.
This first spacewalking test involved more stretching than walking. Isaacman kept a hand or foot attached to it the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the spacesuit held up. The hatch sported a walker-like structure for extra support.
After roughly 10 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. Gillis bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than her knees out of the capsule, as she twisted her arms and sent reports back to Mission Control.
Each had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers but did not unfurl them or dangle at the end unlike what happens at the space station, where astronauts routinely float out at a much lower orbit.
More and more wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Other have spent tens of millions to stay in space for days or even weeks. Space experts and risk analysts say it’s inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry but also the most soul-stirring.
This operation was planned down to the minute with little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft new to spacewalking added to the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.
There were a few glitches. Isaacman had to manually pull the hatch open instead of pushing a button on board. Before heading out, Gillis reported seeing bulges in the hatch seal.
Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon stayed strapped to their seats to monitor from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip.
Mission controllers announced the spacewalk complete from company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, after one hour and 46 minutes – or a full swing and then some around Earth.
It went by “in the blink of an eye,” said SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Action News viewers sent us pictures, showing their view of the rocket in the Philadelphia area.
Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, he took up contest winners and a cancer survivor.
Until Thursday, only 263 people had conducted a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. The Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov kicked it off in 1965, followed a few months later by NASA’s Ed White.
The launch of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying Boeing’s hard-luck Starliner capsule has been delayed another four days, from Friday to next Tuesday, to give engineers time to make sure a small helium leak in the crew ship’s propulsion system has been resolved, officials said Tuesday.
Liftoff from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is now targeted for 4:43 p.m. EDT May 21, setting up a docking at the International Space Station the following afternoon. The flight is expected to conclude with a landing in White Sands, New Mexico, around May 30.
Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule in a processing hangar at the Kennedy Space Center, shortly before it was mounted atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
William Harwood/CBS News
Mission commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams had hoped to take off on the Starliner’s first piloted flight last Monday. They were in the process of strapping in when the countdown was called off because of trouble with an oxygen pressure relief valve in the rocket’s Centaur upper stage.
Two days later, the Atlas 5 was hauled off the launch pad and back to ULA’s nearby Vertical Integration Facility where the suspect valve was replaced. Tests confirmed the rocket is good to go for another launch try.
The unrelated helium leak in the Starliner’s propellant pressurization system was noted during the countdown last week, but it remained within safe limits for flight. After the Atlas 5 and Starliner were rolled back to the VIF for the oxygen valve replacement, managers decided to take a closer look at the helium issue.
The leak was detected in distribution manifold inside one of four “doghouse” assemblies spaced around the exterior of the Starliner’s drum-shaped service module. Each doghouse features four orbital maneuvering and attitude control — OMAC — thrusters and four small reaction control system maneuvering jets.
Pressurized helium gas is used to push propellants to the rocket motors in each doghouse. The leak was traced to a flange on a single RCS thruster.
Bolts were retorqued and engineers believe the system is flight ready. But managers decided to pressurize the helium lines throughout the spacecraft to make sure the lines are, in fact, leak-free or within acceptable limits.
“As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale,” the company said in a statement.
“Mission teams also completed a thorough review of the data from the May 6 launch attempt and are not tracking any other issues.”
Wilmore and Williams, both veteran Navy test pilots and astronauts with four flights to the station between them, flew back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston last Friday for additional simulator training. They are expected to fly back to Florida late this week to gear up for another launch try.
The Atlas 5 rocket and Starliner capsule at launch pad 41 prior to a May 6 launch delay triggered by an oxygen pressure relief valve in the rocket’s Centaur upper stage and, more recently, by a small helium leak in the Starliner’s service module.
United Launch Alliance
The Starliner is one of two commercially built crew ferry ships ordered by NASA in the wake of the shuttle program’s retirement in 2011. SpaceX won a contract valued at $2.6 billion for development of the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion to develop the Starliner.
The goal was to spur development of independent, commercially-operated spacecraft capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Spacecraft from different vendors will allow NASA to continue sending crews to the space station even if a problem grounds one company’s ship.
SpaceX launched its first two-man crew in 2020. Since then, the company has launched eight NASA-sponsored crew rotation flights to the station, three commercial research missions to the lab and a privately-funded, two-man, two-woman trip to low-Earth orbit. In all, 50 people have flown to space aboard Crew Dragons.
Wilmore and Williams will be the first astronauts to fly aboard a Starliner after a series of technical glitches that included major software problems during an initial unpiloted test flight in December 2019 and corroded propulsion system valves that delayed a second uncrewed test mission to May 2022.
The second test flight was a success, but engineers ran into additional questions about parachute harness connectors and protective tape wrapped around wiring that posed a fire risk in a short circuit. Work to correct those issues and others delayed the first piloted launch to this month.
The Atlas 5 oxygen valve problem was United Launch Alliance’s responsibility. The helium leak responsible for the latest delay goes on the Starliner list, but it apparently is a relatively minor problem and would not have prevented launch last week.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.
A legendary astronaut, two Saudis and a wealthy adventurer blasted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Sunday for a trip to the International Space Station, the second “private astronaut mission” aimed at opening the high frontier to commercial development.
The nine Merlin engines powering the Falcon 9’s first stage roared to life at 5:37 p.m. EDT, quickly throttled up to 1.2 million pounds of thrust and smoothly pushed the rocket away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
Arcing away on a northeasterly trajectory, the slender rocket put on a spectacular weekend sky show, thrilling thousands of area residents and tourists lining nearby roads and beaches.
Ax-2 launches on a private mission to the ISS.
SpaceX
Monitoring the automated ascent from their seats in the Crew Dragon “Freedom” capsule were commander Peggy Whitson and co-pilot John Shoffner, flanked on the left and right by first-time Saudi fliers Ali Alqarni, a veteran F-16 fighter pilot, and biomedical researcher Rayyanah Barnawi.
Whitson, now retired from NASA, is America’s most experienced astronaut, with 665 days in space and 10 spacewalks to her credit during three earlier missions. Shoffner, a retired fiber optics entrepreneur, is a veteran private pilot, high-performance race car driver and skydiver.
Shoffner paid Axiom an undisclosed amount for his seat aboard the Crew Dragon while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covered the costs of its two astronauts. Whitson, now director of human spaceflight for Axiom Space, flew as part of the company charter.
The Ax-2 crew (left to right): co-pilot John Shoffner, Saudi astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi, commander Peggy Whitson and Saudi astronaut Ali Alqarni. (Credit: Axiom Space)
Axiom Space
“I wanted to be able to fly in space again,” Whitson said after her final NASA mission, “but the realistic part of Peggy said, no, you’re not likely to be able to. And so, it’s just a thrill and a half to have this opportunity to fly for Axiom.”
After boosting the rocket out of the thick lower atmosphere, the flight plan called for the reusable first stage to fall away and head for landing back at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the Falcon 9’s second stage continued the push to orbit.
In past Crew Dragon flights, booster stages landed on offshore barges and were towed back to shore for refurbishment and reuse. But past experience showed actual performance was better than expected, leaving enough propellant on board to reverse course and return to the launch site.
One minute after the first stage touchdown — nine minutes after liftoff — the Crew Dragon capsule was expected to reach orbit.
If all goes well, the crew will monitor an automated rendezvous with the space station, catching up with the lab complex Monday morning and moving in for docking at the forward Harmony module’s space-facing port at 9:16 a.m.
They’ll be welcomed aboard by Expedition 69 commander Sergey Prokopyev and his two Soyuz MS-23 crewmates, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, along with NASA Crew 6 fliers Steve Bowen, Woody Hoburg, cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi.
Alneyadi, the second UAE flier to reach space, is the first Arab astronaut to serve as a long-duration crew member aboard the ISS. With the arrival of Alqarni and Barnawi, three of the station’s 11 crew members will represent the Middle East.
“I think it is a great opportunity that the three of us can be aboard the International Space Station,” Alqarni said. “(That) will hold a big message that we can be sending out to inspire people. And that means for us, as the Arab world, we are holding hands, we are working together for the betterment of humanity.”
The Ax-2 flight is the second private astronaut mission, or PAM, to the International Space Station chartered by Axiom. NASA plans to sanction up to two PAM missions each year to encourage private-sector development in low-Earth orbit.
Axiom Space is using the missions to gain the expertise needed to begin building a stand-alone commercial space station that can be used by government and private-sector astronauts and researchers after the International Space Station is retired at the end of the decade.
In the near term, the missions also provide a way for serious, technically competent private citizens and governments without access to space to visit the ISS for research and public outreach — goals encouraged by NASA.
Alqarni and Barnawi are the second and third Saudis to fly in space after Sultan Salman Al-Saud flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1985. They will be the first Saudis to visit the space station and Barnawi will become the first Saudi woman to fly in space.
During an eight-day stay, Whitson, Shoffner, Alqarni and Barnawi plan to carry out 20 research projects, 14 of them developed by Saudi scientists, that range from human physiology, cell biology and technology development.
“Research has been my passion in life,” Barnawi said at a pre-launch news conference. “This is a great opportunity for me to represent the country, to represent their dreams. … This is a dream come true for everyone.”
Along with a full slate of experiments, the crew will participate in live broadcasts to school kids across Saudi Arabia as part of a STEM initiative to build interest in science and technology.
“This is a huge, huge event in Saudi Arabia,” said Derek Hassmann, Axiom chief of mission integration and operations. “During the time they’re docked to ISS, there is a whole series of media events scheduled.
“One of the focuses of many of these events is interacting with school-aged children in Saudi Arabia. And that was one of the reasons, just the timing of the school year, that we’re very interested in getting this flight done in May. They have a whole series of post-flight events planned as well.”
Barnawi said, “We are here as STEM educators for the kids to be (attracted) to math and science, technology, to know that they can do more.”
Whitson and her crewmates plan to undock from the station on May 30. After a fiery plunge back into the lower atmosphere, the Crew Dragon will make a parachute descent to splashdown off the coast of Florida where SpaceX recovery crews will be standing by.
“I’m honored to be heading back to the ISS for the fourth time, leading this talented Ax-2 crew on their first mission,” Whitson said in an Axiom statement. “This is a strong and cohesive team determined to conduct meaningful scientific research in space and inspire a new generation about the benefits of microgravity.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
In a frustrating disappointment, the launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying a four-man crew bound for the International Space Station was called off with just two minutes to go because of trouble with a system used to ignite the Falcon 9’s first stage engines.
Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen, Warren “Woody” Hoburg, cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and Emerati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, the first Arab assigned to a long-duration station flight, took the scrub in stride and patiently waited inside the spacecraft while the rocket’s propellants were drained away.
The next launch opportunity comes at 1:22 a.m. EST Tuesday, but it wasn’t immediately known what caused a problem with the engine igniter fluid or how long it might take to resolve the issue. The fluid is a chemical known as triethylaluminum triethylboron, or “TEA TEB.”
If the crew fails to get off the ground Tuesday, the next opportunity will come on March 2.
It was the first last-minute launch scrub of a Crew Dragon due to a technical problem since the ferry ships started carrying astronauts to the space station in 2020, ending NASA’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to take astronauts to and from the lab complex.
Along with disappointing the crew, the last-minute scrub also ended a chance for SpaceX to launch three Falcon 9s in just 13 hours, with afternoon launches planned in Florida and California to put two batches of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. It wasn’t immediately known if those flights would remain on schedule.
But flight safety is the top priority, and SpaceX will no doubt fix the ignitor issue after engineers have a chance to track down what went wrong. The only question is how long it might take.
Whenever they take off, Bowen and company will be welcomed aboard the station by Crew-5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian to launch aboard a Crew Dragon. They arrived at the station last October and plan to return to Earth around March 6 to close out a 151-day mission.
Also welcoming the Crew-6 fliers will be Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio. They launched to the lab last September and originally planned to fly home in March.
But their Soyuz MS-22 ferry ship was crippled December 14 when a presumed micrometeoroid ruptured a coolant line. After an analysis, Russian engineers concluded the spacecraft could not safely be used again because of the possibility sensitive systems could overheat.
Instead, a replacement Soyuz — MS-23 — was launched last Thursday, carrying equipment and supplies instead of a crew. The spacecraft docked with the station Saturday night, providing Prokopyev and his crewmates with a safe ride home.
But to get the crew rotation schedule back on track, the trio will have to spend an additional six months in space, coming home this fall after a full year in orbit. They’ll share the station with Crew 6 for most of that time.
Alneyadi, a father of six, is the second Emerati to fly in space but the first named to a full-duration six-month stay aboard the station. During his expedition, two Saudi fliers will visit the lab complex for about a week as part of a commercial mission managed by Houston-based Axiom Space.
“I think it’s going to be really interesting,” Alneyadi said after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center last week. “It’s for the sake of science, for the sake of spreading the knowledge about how important it is to fly (in space) and to push the boundaries of exploration, not only in the leading countries.
“Our region is also thirsty to learn more. And I think we will be ambassadors in these missions. Hopefully, we can come back with knowledge and share whatever we learn with everybody.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an Emirati flew to the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday to begin preparations for launch early Monday on a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to replace four crew members aboard the International Space Station who are wrapping up a five-month stay.
Launch had been planned for Sunday, but NASA and SpaceX managers ordered a 24-hour slip during a flight readiness review Tuesday to allow more time to close out a handful of open technical issues. Launch now is targeted for 1:45 a.m. EST Monday.
The Crew-6 Dragon spacecraft arriving at SpaceX’s hangar at pad 39A for launch processing.
NASA
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said he expects the open items to be cleared by the end of the week.
“When we looked at the work remaining to go on the vehicle, getting Dragon and Falcon 9 ready to go, we were a little bit behind on that work and so we need a little bit more time to do that,” he told reporters after the review concluded.
“We’re taking our time each step of the way getting Dragon ready to go, doing the proper analysis, getting Falcon 9 ready to go, and making sure we’ll go fly when we’re ready.”
Earlier Tuesday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russian engineers hauled a Soyuz rocket and crew ferry ship to the pad, setting the stage for launch to the lab complex Thursday evening.
Three station crew members — Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio — had planned to return to Earth next month to wrap up their own six-month station visit. But their Soyuz MS-22 ferry ship was disabled by a presumed micrometeoroid impact that ruptured a critical coolant line on December 14.
The Russians are launching an unpiloted replacement Soyuz, MS-23, at 7:24 p.m. Thursday to give Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio a fresh Soyuz that will carry them back to Earth in September after nearly a full year in space. They’ll be replaced by the original MS-23 crew, who will fly up on the next Soyuz in the sequence.
Assuming an on-time launch Thursday, the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is expected to carry out an automated rendezvous with the space station, docking at the lab’s upper Poisk module around 8 p.m. Saturday.
The Crew-6 astronauts pose for photos after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center for launch. Left to right: Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, Crew Dragon pilot Woody Hoburg and NASA commander Stephen Bowen.
NASA
At the same time, SpaceX and NASA will be gearing up to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket at pad 39A early Monday.
The ship’s crew — commander Stephen Bowen, pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg, cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates flier Sultan Alneyadi — landed at the spaceport’s 3-mile-long Launch and Landing Facility runway a few minutes before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday to begin final preparations.
“I’ve had the privilege over the past couple of years of training with an incredible crew,” Bowen, a former submariner and veteran of three shuttle flights, told reporters at the runway. “They are just the most amazing people. And it’s just an incredible honor to be here. We’re really looking forward to our mission.”
If all goes well, SpaceX will haul the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon out of the company hangar and up to the top of pad 39A on Wednesday. Bowen and company plan to don their pressure suits and strap for a dress-rehearsal countdown late Thursday, culminating in a simulated launch early Friday.
A few hours later, after the crew departs, SpaceX engineers plan to test fire the Falcon 9’s first stage engines, setting the stage for launch Monday. If no problems arise, the Crew Dragon will catch up with the space station early Tuesday, docking to the Harmony module’s upper port at 2:29 a.m.
Standing by to welcome them aboard will be the crew Bowen and company are replacing — Crew-5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina — along with Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio.
Prokopyev and his crewmates were launched to the station last September and originally planned to spend six months aboard the lab. But the suspected micrometeoroid impact in December resulted in a massive coolant leak.
After a detailed analysis, Russian engineers concluded the spacecraft could not be relied on to safely carry its three crew members back to Earth without overheating. Instead, engineers worked to ready the Soyuz MS-23 for launch ahead of schedule to replace the damaged MS-22 ferry ship.
In an unlikely coincidence, a Russian Progress cargo ship docked at the station suddenly lost its coolant February 11, two months after the Soyuz incident. The Progress undocked last Friday and plunged back into the atmosphere Saturday, breaking up as expected over the southern Pacific Ocean.
Analysis of post-undocking video and photography showed what the Russians concluded may have been another impact, similar to but larger than the one that damaged the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, or possibly the site of a leak caused by some earlier problem after launch.
In any case, the replacement Soyuz will dock at the same port vacated by the damaged Progress. At that point, all the station crew members once again will have independent lifeboats — Crew Dragon and Soyuz — for use in the event of an emergency that might require an immediate evacuation.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Two astronauts making their first spacewalk ventured outside the International Space Station on Friday amid heightened awareness of the threat posed by micrometeoroids and space debris in the wake of an impact that damaged a Russian crew ferry ship last month.
While the odds of a life-threatening impact during a spacewalk are low — on the order of 1-in-23,600 — the threat is “something that I think very much about in preparation for any EVA,” said Keith Johnson, a NASA mission control spacewalk officer.
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, left, and NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, right, check safety tethers outside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock compartment before heading to the right side of the lab’s power truss for work to assemble a mounting bracket for a new solar array.
NASA
“The suit is designed to accommodate … certain size puncture holes and yet still keep the crew members alive,” he added. But “there’s always risk.”
Floating in the Quest airlock, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA’s Nicole Mann switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:14 a.m. EST to kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour excursion. They made their way outside a few minutes later.
They planned to spend the day working on the right side of the space station’s power truss completing assembly of a Tinkertoy-like solar array support bracket and building a second bracket from scratch.
Spacewalkers already have attached three ISS roll-out solar arrays, known as IROSAs, on brackets assembled on the left side of the power truss and one more IROSA on the right. Two additional roll-out arrays will be launched later this year for installation on the brackets Wakata and Mann are assembling.
The goal is to augment the electrical output of the space station’s original set of solar arrays, which have degraded over their years in the harsh space environment. When the IROSA upgrade is complete, the lab will be back to full power.
NASA
Friday’s spacewalk came a little more than a month after a micrometeoroid impact ruptured a coolant line on a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship December 14, rendering it unusable for a planned crew return in March.
Instead, the Russians will launch a fresh Soyuz without a crew on February 20 to take the place of the damaged spacecraft. The crew of the damaged MS-22 ferry ship — two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut — now will spend an additional six months in space before coming home in September.
The impact served as a reminder that astronauts and cosmonauts conducting spacewalks in the vacuum of low-Earth orbit, an environment populated by countless undetectable particles whizzing about at extreme velocities, face a small but very real threat.
NASA experts carry out a probabilistic risk assessment for micrometeoroids and space debris impacts before every spacewalk based on the latest assessment of the environment, where the astronauts will be working and a variety of other factors, including the timing of known meteor showers.
The view from Koichi Wakata’s helmet camera showing crewmate Nicole against the backdrop of planet Earth.
NASA
For the most recent spacewalk last month, the calculated odds of a spacesuit penetration during a six-and-a-half-hour EVA were in the neighborhood of 1-in-3,800. The odds of a “critical” penetration were on the order of 1-in-21,300. The numbers for Friday’s spacewalk were similar, an official said.
In this case, “critical” means a penetration larger than 4 millimeters across resulting in an uncontrollable loss of oxygen. The micrometeoroid that damaged the Soyuz spacecraft was about 1 millimeter across.
Safety tethers and procedures are in place to enable a speedy return to the safety of the space station airlock in case of a life-threatening problem. The goal is to get back inside in 30 minutes or less.
As for impacts, the multi-layer spacesuit is designed to help ensure a smaller particle will break up during impact, before it can penetrate the innermost layer and allow air to escape.
But there are many unknowns in the calculation and despite extensive training and contingency plans, “it’s just like anytime you get in an automobile, there is always risk,” Johnson said.
“But we need to be willing to figure out the safest way to do it, get ready for all that could go wrong and that’s how we do it to put our crew members in that position.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Temperatures in a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship docked at the International Space Station — a lifeboat for three of the lab’s seven crew members — remain within safe limits despite a dramatic overnight leak in the spacecraft’s cooling system, officials said Thursday.
The leak developed around 7:45 p.m. EST Wednesday amid preparations for a planned 6-hour and 40-minute spacewalk by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to move a radiator from the Rassvet module, where the Soyuz MS-22/68S spacecraft is docked, to the new Nauka laboratory module.
With the cosmonauts suited up in the Poisk airlock compartment, Russian flight controllers noted a low-pressure warning in an external Soyuz coolant loop, and then saw a sudden stream of coolant venting into space in a shower of icy particles.
The leak looked especially dramatic under certain lighting conditions, showing up in a NASA television camera view as a jetting shower of countless shiny particles, presumably frozen coolant. The leak was not clearly visible in another view, from another angle and with different lighting.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina, working inside the Russian Nauka lab module (left), uses a European-built robot arm to inspect the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft (right) after it sprang an apparent coolant leak, forcing Russian flight controllers to cancel an already planned spacewalk. Dec. 14, 2022.
NASA TV
But there was no doubt a major leak was present. It continued for several hours and Russian flight controllers called off the spacewalk while engineers monitored telemetry and video.
More than 12 hours later, the origin and cause of the leak remained unclear. Options ranged from a space debris impact to an isolated hardware failure of some sort.
The Soyuz carried Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the space station on Sept. 21, and it is required to carry them back to Earth at the end of March. In the meantime, the ship serves as a lifeboat in case of an emergency that might force the trio to abandon the ISS ahead of schedule.
Coolant systems are critical to all spacecraft in order to cope with a wide range of temperatures, such as when vehicles are in direct sunlight, the cold darkness of the Earth’s shadow, or during re-entry. It’s not yet known how much coolant, if any, might remain in the system, or how temperatures will respond to different sun angles in the station’s orbit.
But telemetry in the wake of the leak showed temperatures in the Soyuz spacecraft remained within safe limits.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos “is closely monitoring Soyuz spacecraft temperatures, which remain within acceptable limits,” NASA said in a blog post Thursday. “NASA and Roscosmos continue to coordinate external imagery and inspection plans to aid in evaluating the external leak location.”
While NASA did not address the issue directly, the Soyuz presumably is flightworthy as is, but no other details were immediately available.
Overnight Wednesday, cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who flew up to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship with three NASA-sponsored crewmates, used a new European Space Agency-built robot arm on the Nauka module to visually inspect the Soyuz.
NASA said an additional inspection by the Canadian-built robot arm on the U.S. segment of the lab complex is being planned. In the meantime, Crew Dragon astronaut Josh Cassada and Rubio are pressing ahead with plans to carry out a spacewalk of their own Monday to continue an ongoing solar array system upgrade.
“The crew aboard station completed normal operations Thursday, including participating in science investigations and research,” NASA reported. “Specialists are working through robotic plans ahead of Monday’s spacewalk to best optimize for upcoming station operations and the Soyuz inspection.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon space station supply ship blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center Saturday, kicking off a 17-hour rendezvous. If all goes well, the Dragon, loaded with 7,700-pounds of supplies and equipment, will dock at the lab complex at 7:30 a.m. EST Sunday.
NASA TV
SpaceX launched its 26th space station resupply mission Saturday, sending up 7,700 pounds of equipment and supplies aboard a Dragon cargo ship, including belated Thanksgiving Day treats for the lab’s crew, research gear and two new roll-out solar arrays to boost the station’s power.
Running late because of stormy weather earlier this week, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage engines roared to life at 2:20 p.m. EST and the slender rocket shot away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. About 12 minutes later, the Cargo Dragon was released to fly on its own.
If all goes well, the spacecraft will chase down the station early Sunday, approaching from behind and below. After looping up in front of the lab and then above it, the capsule will move in for an autonomous docking at the space-facing port of the forward Harmony module.
“Of critical importance to us (are) the two new solar arrays that we’ll be doing spacewalks … to install and deploy on board the International Space Station,” said Joel Montalbano, space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“And in addition to the two solar arrays, we have some life support equipment being delivered, some GPS hardware, some exercise hardware and some medical equipment. … All in all, we’re looking for an exciting mission.”
Also on board: belated Thanksgiving treats for the station’s seven-member crew, including spicy green beans, cranapple desserts and pumpkin pie.
“In addition, our standard food menu allows them to have everything that we’d be having on Thanksgiving, you know, mashed potatoes, candied yams, mac and cheese for those who want mac and cheese. So we’re going to get those guys fed very well.”
The Cargo Dragon also is loaded with research gear, including an experiment to grow dwarf tomatoes in space, an experimental in-flight medical diagnosis kit, an experiment to test novel techniques for building large structures in microgravity and another that will test new ways to produce key nutrients in space.
A camera on the Falcon 9’s second stage captures a view of the Dragon cargo ship floating away after reaching orbit. A set of rolled-up solar array blankets is visible in the spacecraft’s unpressurized trunk section.
NASA TV
The ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or IROSAs, are the third and fourth of six being installed on the space station in a $103 million upgrade to augment the power output of the lab’s eight older, original-equipment blankets.
The space station was built with four huge rotating solar wings, two on the right side of the lab and two on the left. Each of those four wings is made up of two solar blankets extending from opposite sides of a central hub.
The first pair of original-equipment blankets have been in operation for more than 20 years. Subsequent wings were added in 2006, 2007 and 2009. All of them have suffered degradation from years in the space environment and they do not generate as much power as they did when they were new.
The IROSA blankets, about half the size of the original arrays, are more efficient and will eventually generate an additional 120 kilowatts of power. They were designed to be mounted on brackets at the base of an existing wing, extending outward at a 10-degree angle to minimize the shade they cast on the array below.
NASA is in the process of upgrading the International Space Station’s solar power system. The first two of six roll-out solar array blankets were installed last year, attached to the outboard original-equipment arrays on the far right. Two roll-out arrays launched aboard the Cargo Dragon Saturday will be attached to inboard arrays on the right- and left-side of the station.
NASA
The first two IROSA blankets were installed on the left-side outboard arrays — the oldest set on the station — during spacewalks in 2021. The IROSAs carried up aboard the SpaceX Cargo Dragon Saturday will be installed on the left and right-side inboard wings during spacewalks in December.
“The first two arrays have been performing outstandingly well,” Matt Mickle, development projects senior manager at Boeing, said in a NASA release. “The solar cells are immensely more powerful than previous generations.”
Once all six roll-out arrays are installed, overall power generation will be boosted 20 to 30 percent, roughly matching the output of the original arrays when they were new.
The final two of the six IROSAs currently under contract will be launched next year. It’s not yet known whether NASA will buy two final IROSAs to augment all eight of the station’s original blankets.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance wrapped up a 29-hour rendezvous with a picture-perfect docking at the International Space Station on Thursday, bringing two NASA astronauts, a Japanese flier and a Russian cosmonaut, to the outpost a day after launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
Spacecraft commander Nicole Mann, co-pilot Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian to fly on a Crew Dragon, monitored a series of automated rendezvous rocket firings as the SpaceX capsule moved in, docking at the station’s forward port at 5:01 p.m. EDT.
The combined 11-member crew of the International Space Station following the arrival of the SpaceX Crew 5 Dragon capsule. Left to right (floating upright): cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin, Crew 5 cosmonaut Anna Kikina, Crew 5 Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Crew 5 commander Nicole Mann, Crew 5 pilot Josh Cassada and cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev. Floating upside down, left to right: NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins and Frank Rubio.
NASA TV
A dozen motorized bolts then drove home to firmly lock the two spacecraft together with an airtight structural seal.
“Docking sequence complete,” radioed SpaceX communicator Jake Vendl from the company’s Hawthorne, California, control room. “Crew Dragon Endurance, and Koichi, Nicole, Josh and Anna, welcome to the International Space Station.”
“Thank you so much!” Mann replied. “Crew 5 is happy to have finally arrived at the International Space Station. Endurance is a very proper name for our training, mission and the spacecraft. … We are looking forward to getting to work.”
At 6:49 p.m., Mann and her crewmates floated into the station to hugs and handshakes from Crew 4 commander Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, along with Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina floats into the International Space Station and in the process demonstrates the effects of weightlessness.
NASA TV
The Endurance crew is replacing Lindgren, Hines, Watkins and Cristoforetti, who plan to return to Earth on Oct. 13 aboard Crew Dragon Freedom, which carried them to the space station last April. Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, who arrived at the lab aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry ship on Sept. 21, replaced an earlier Soyuz crew that returned to Earth on Sept. 29.
Kikina is the first Russian to fly aboard a U.S. spacecraft in nearly 20 years. She and Rubio were launched under a new agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, that ensures at least one astronaut or cosmonaut is always aboard the space station even if a Crew Dragon or Soyuz is forced to depart early, taking its crew with it.
Without the seat-swap arrangement, a medical emergency or some other major problem could leave an all-Russian or all-NASA crew aboard without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.
“We signed an agreement with Roscosmos for one flight this year, one flight next year and one flight in ’24,” said Joel Montalbano, manager of the NASA space station program at the Johnson Space Center. “That’s for all SpaceX missions.”
NASA and its partner agencies are working to extend station operations to the end of the decade. Assuming Russia eventually signs on for at least part of that planned extension, Montalbano hopes the seat-swap agreement will be updated with additional flights.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Two NASA astronauts, a Japanese space veteran, and Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, flew to the Kennedy Space Center Saturday to prepare for launch Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Their Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the top of historic pad 39A before dawn Saturday and rotated vertical just after 12 p.m. Eastern. A few minutes later, Crew 5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina landed on the spaceport runway after a flight from Houston to begin final preparations.
The Crew 5 astronauts spoke with reporters at NASA’s one-time shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center moments after arriving from Houston. Left to right: commander Nicole Mann, an unidentified interpreter, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, Josh Cassada and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
NASA
“First of all, my prayers and thoughts go out to all the people in Florida who are affected by the devastating hurricane,” Wakata said. “I hope with this launch, we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone.”
The astronauts plan to don their pressure suits and strap into the Crew Dragon spacecraft Sunday morning for a dress-rehearsal countdown. Later in the day, SpaceX engineers plan to test fire the Falcon 9’s first stage engines to verify their readiness for flight.
If all goes well, Mann and her crewmates will strap in for real around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to brace for launch just after 12 p.m., the moment the Earth’s rotation carries the rocket into the plane of the space station’s orbit.
The Crew 5 Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the top of pad 39A and rotated vertical Saturday, setting the stage for a dress-rehearsal countdown and engine test firing Sunday followed by blastoff Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station.
CBS News
It will take the crew about 29 hours to catch up with the lab complex, moving in for an automated docking at the station’s forward port around 5 a.m. Thursday.
Standing by to welcome them on board will be Expedition 68 commander Samantha Cristoforetti and her Crew 4 crewmates — Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins — along with Soyuz MS-22/68S crew members Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who arrived at the station Sept. 21.
Wakata is making his fifth space flight, while Mann, Cassada and Kikina, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a Crew Dragon, are space rookies.
Rubio’s addition to the Soyuz crew, and Kikina’s addition to Crew 5, were the result of a recent agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, that’s designed to ensure at least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut are aboard the station at all times.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian assigned to a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, tells her crewmates she’s thrilled to join them for a flight to the space station.
NASA
Without such an agreement, a medical emergency — or some other problem that might force a Crew Dragon or Soyuz to depart early — could leave the station with an all-Russian or all-NASA-sponsored crew without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.
Kikina said she was thrilled by the opportunity.
“I want to share with you my feelings,” she said in broken English. “I really want to say, from my side, and to everybody who made for me that unbelievable, incredible opportunity to be a part of our joint, big something, for all of us. And to be a part of that great, for me, maybe for you also, Crew 5. I really love my crewmates, I really feel comfortable.”
Kikina, who joined the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2012, said she was stunned when told she was being assigned to Crew 5.
“My leaders just appoint me and told me, do you want to be part of Crew 5? Yes. Why not? But I was so surprised.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
