NASA confirms who is flying on SpaceX Crew Dragon
NASA has confirmed the names of the two crew members who will be flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on the next SpaceX mission: NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The duo are set to launch no earlier than September 24 onboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The Crew-9 mission will fly with two unoccupied seats that will be taken by the Starliner crew of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched in June 2024 and will now return as part of Crew-9 in February 2025.
The Starliner crew was originally supposed to come back in the Boeing spacecraft, but NASA decided that using the SpaceX capsule presented less of a risk, hence the need for two of the four seats to be empty. Starliner itself is set to undock from the ISS and return to Earth without a crew no earlier than September 6.
Hague is no stranger to off-nominal situations, having been part of the Soyuz MS-10 crew, which experienced a launch abort. Hague was later launched in 2019 on Soyuz MS-12.
It will be Gorbunov’s first spaceflight.
Bumped from Crew-9 to make way for the Starliner crew are NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. This would have been Cardman’s first spaceflight and Wilson’s fourth. According to NASA, both are eligible for reassignment on a future mission.
There were brave words from NASA managers and the astronauts. NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba described the call as “another tough decision,” particularly since Crew-9 had trained together.
Cardman commented: “All four of us remain dedicated to the success of this mission, and Stephanie and I look forward to flying when the time is right.”
NASA said: “Acaba had to balance flying a NASA crew member with previous spaceflight experience to command the flight, while ensuring NASA maintains an integrated crew with a Roscosmos cosmonaut who can operate their critical systems for continued, safe station operations.”
Noises from Starliner
Despite being set to return to Earth without a crew, Boeing’s Calamity Capsule continues to capture the imagination for all the wrong reasons. Meteorologist Rob Dale posted in a NASASpaceflight forum an exchange between ISS astronaut Butch Wilmore and mission control in which Wilmore treated controllers to strange noises coming from a speaker in the Starliner capsule.
Described as sounding like a sonar ping, it’s probably not the sort of thing you want to hear on a darkened space station during a sleep cycle. Particularly considering some of the science-fiction dramas currently doing the rounds in theaters.
Neither Wilmore nor controllers on the ground sounded particularly alarmed by the noise, which is likely being caused by interference or some feedback. The sound is just the latest in Starliner’s litany of oddities, which include helium leaks and the thruster problems that necessitated a longer-than-expected stay on the ISS for Wilmore and Williams.
Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield wrote: “There are several noises I’d prefer not to hear inside my spaceship, including this one that Boeing Starliner is now making.”
Asked for more information, NASA told The Register: “A pulsing sound from a speaker in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heard by NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore aboard the International Space Station has stopped. The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner. The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations, including Starliner’s uncrewed undocking from the station no earlier than Friday, September 6.” ®