MILAN — NASA will use SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle for two crew rotation missions to the International Space Station in 2025, as it continues to evaluate whether to require Boeing to conduct another test flight of its Starliner spacecraft.
In an October 15 statement, NASA said it would use Crew Dragon on both the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station, scheduled no later than February 2025, and the Crew-11 mission scheduled no later than July. Crew-10 will be led by NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nicole Ayers along with astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japanese space agency JAXA and Roscosmos astronaut Kirill Peskov. NASA has not yet announced the crew for the Crew-11 mission.
Earlier this year, NASA was hopeful that a Boeing CST-100 Starliner would be certified in time to fly a mission in early 2025. Problems with the crew flight test mission, which launched in June with two NASA astronauts Butch on board, led Wilmore and Sonny Williams, led NASA to conclude in July that the spacecraft would not be certified in time. It delayed the Starliner-1 mission from February to August 2025, and moved Crew-10 to February. NASA also subsequently announced that it would prepare Crew-11 in parallel with Starliner-1 for launch in the August 2025 slot.
“The timing and configuration of the next Starliner flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to certification of the system is achieved,” NASA said in its statement about the 2025 missions. “NASA keeps options on the table about how best to certify the system, including opportunities for a potential Starliner flight in 2025.”
NASA did not provide any updates on revisions to the Starliner’s Crew Flight Test mission, which ended Sept. 7 with an unmanned landing in New Mexico after NASA concluded it was safer for Willmore and Williams to return on the Crew-9 Crew Dragon mission early. 2025. At the time of Starliner’s return, agency officials suggested they could still proceed directly to Starliner-1 despite propulsion problems and helium leaks in the spacecraft.
“It’s under review of the data. We need to make a decision: Do we need another test flight? We need to do another test flight,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Milroy said when asked about the status of the Starliner review at a news conference during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here on October 16. She added There is no timetable for completing this data review.
Another open issue for future commercial crew flights is whether NASA and Roscosmos will continue to swap seats between Soyuz and commercial crew vehicles. Such “integrated crews,” with NASA astronauts flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and Roscosmos astronauts aboard a Crew Dragon, are intended to ensure that both agencies maintain a presence on the station if either spacecraft is parked for an extended period.
Currently, no NASA astronauts are assigned to the Soyuz spacecraft beyond Juni Kim for the next Soyuz mission to the International Space Station, Soyuz MS-27 in March 2025. Roscosmos officials in August released crew data for the next two Soyuz missions, Soyuz MS-28 V Late 2025. 2025 and Soyuz MS-29 in 2026, which was composed entirely of Roscosmos cosmonauts.
At another IAC press conference on October 15, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson expressed confidence that NASA and Roscosmos would agree to extend the seat swap agreement. “This will come in due time. “It will be a normal negotiation,” he added. “We fully expect flights to continue to be integrated.”
Related to
“Devoted student. Bacon advocate. Beer scholar. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot. Typical coffee enthusiast.”