30 Aug 2024 20:48

Roscosmos cosmonaut Gorbunov to fly to ISS with reduced Crew Dragon crew no sooner than Sept 24 - NASA

MOSCOW. Aug 30 (Interfax) - The Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov has been included in the reduced crew of a Crew Dragon spaceship that will fly to the International Space Station (ISS), a NASA statement said.

"NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov will launch no earlier than Tuesday, September 24, on the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station," the statement said.

Hague will be commander of the crew and Gorbunov is flying as a mission specialist, it said.

The updated crew is due to NASA's decision to return Starliner's Crew Flight Test uncrewed and launch Crew-9 with two unoccupied seats, NASA said.

On August 7 NASA said that the launch of the American Crew Dragon spaceship with Gorbunov on board to the ISS was rescheduled from August 18 to September 24 due to problems with bringing the Starliner crew back to Earth.

As well as Gorbunov, the international crew of the Crew-9 mission included NASA astronauts Zena Cardman (mission commander), Hague and Stephanie Wilson.

On August 30 NASA said that the unscrewed Starliner would leave the ISS on September 7 and that its members - astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams - would remain aboard the ISS until February 2025.

The Starliner was launched on June 5 as part of the first test flight with astronauts. The crew were to spend around eights days at the station. On approaching the ISS the crew detected problems with the engines for maneuvering and a helium leak in the ship's service module. The return of the crew had to be postponed in order to test the reliability of the ship's systems.

In July 2022, Roscosmos and NASA signed an agreement on cross-flights by three Russian cosmonauts on board U.S. Crew Dragon spacecraft and by three U.S. astronauts on board Russian Soyuz MS spacecraft in 2022-2024 under the ISS program.

In December 2023, Roscosmos announced extending the cross-flight agreement with NASA until 2025. Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikalev told Interfax that the additional agreement provided for two more cross-flights to the ISS in the period up to 2025.