The flight will be the fourth
WASHINGTON, September 8. /TASS/. The next - already the fourth-mission to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft is planned no earlier than April 15, 2022. This was announced on Tuesday by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration on its website.
"We intend to send the next crew to the ISS on a SpaceX ship no earlier than April 15. Their mission aboard the station will last six months. The commander of the Crew Dragon ship is Chell Lindgren, the pilot is Bob Hines, both of them are NASA astronauts. Together with them, the representative of the European Space Agency Samantha Cristoforetti will fly, the fourth crew member has yet to be approved," the agency said.
As emphasized by NASA, the Italian Cristoforetti will be the commander of the 68th expedition of the ISS. She worked at the station in November 2014-June 2015.
They will replace Americans Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron and German Matthias Maurer in orbit, who are scheduled to go to the ISS on Crew Dragon no earlier than October 31. It is assumed that their mission will be completed at the end of April 2022.
Currently, members of the second Crew Dragon manned mission are working at the station: Americans Shane Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, Frenchman Tom Pesquet and Japanese Akihiko Hoshide, who were delivered there on April 24. Russians Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov and American Mark Vande Hai are also on watch there.
The first flight to the ISS, which is considered a test flight, was made on Crew Dragon in May last year by Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, who spent two months in orbit. On November 16, Americans Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese Soichi Noguchi arrived at the station with a six-month mission. They returned to Earth on May 2 of this year.