WASHINGTON – A NASA astronaut who travels to the International Space Station in April can spend up to a year at the station, an extension of the stay he says he is “delighted” with.
NASA announced that March 9th He flew the Soyuz MS-18 mission to the space stationIt will launch on April 9th. It will fly with Roscosmos astronauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov.
In a typical mission scenario, the trio would stay at the station for six months, returning after the next crew arrived aboard the Soyuz MS-19 in October. However, Roscosmos officials discussed filming at the station in October, sending director Klim Shibenko and an actress to be selected during the ongoing competition in Soyuz MS-19 with Commander Anton Shkaplerov. Shipenko and the actress will return with Soyuz MS-18 with Novitsky, commander of the mission, which will require Dubrov and Fandy to remain at the station until the end of April 2022, when the next Soyuz crew rotation mission begins.
Vande Hei confessed, in a phone call to reporters on March 15, that he had probably stayed at the station for more than six months. “It all depends on whether these tourists will take the spaceship in the fall, because they will be sitting in my seat,” he said.
He said he welcomed the opportunity to stay longer on the International Space Station. “Honestly, this is just a chance to experience a new life.” He said, referring to his first mission to the International Space Station, which took place from September 2017 to February 2018. “I’m really excited about that.
This uncertain duration isn’t the only unconventional aspect of the mission. NASA acquired the seats not by buying them directly from Roscosmos, as has been done in the past, but through an exchange with commercial space airline Axiom Space, which acquired the seats from Roscosmos in a deal neither Roscosmos nor Axiom disclosed. Axiom will get a seat on NASA’s commercial crew mission to the International Space Station, possibly in 2023, in exchange for the seat of Soyuz.
Vandy Hee said he wasn’t involved in the seat negotiations. “I believe it is a very complex and difficult thing to operate. I know a lot of efforts have been made to make it happen, “he said. “I am very happy that it is working the way it should, and I am also very happy that I do not have to deal with all these details.”
Vande Hei began training last year as a backup for Kate Rubins, a NASA astronaut who traveled to the station on the Soyuz MS-17 mission last October, then “went straight to the water” to train the Soyuz MS-18. “The only thing that’s uncertain is whether I actually started as a result of training or not,” he said.
Roscosmos initially announced that Sergey Korsakov would accompany Nowitzki and Dubrov on the Soyuz MS-18. He said Vande had been training with these three months, knowing that only three out of four would fly. He said, “We are ready for any emergency.”
Because of this uncertainty, he said that he set expectations on whether to start. He said, “I try not to get too emotional, too excited about the fact that I will start in April.” “I realize I only do this when I get really excited when it’s actually done.”
Roscosmos went a step further by creating two patch versions of the Soyuz MS-18 mission, one of which was named Vande Hei – Seen in February in the photos of training activities by Nowitzki and Dubrov – And one with the name Korsakov. At a friends show, Vande Hei said he was wearing the patch version called Korsakov while Korsakov was wearing the Vande Hei patch. On Korsakov, he said: “I will always think of him as part of our team.”
Russian media reported that the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) is considering assigning Korsakov to future Dragon Crew missions after NASA and Roscosmos reached an agreement on a seat swap between Soyuz and commercial crew vehicles.
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