The Cosmonaut Training Center has selected four candidates to prepare for flights on the American Crew Dragon manned spacecraft. This was announced on Wednesday, November 17, by the head of the Center Maxim Kharlamov.
"These are four people, the main crew member of the USCV-5 and his understudy, and the main and his understudy of the USCV-6," Kharlamov said in an interview with Interfax.
He clarified that in the near future the candidates should be submitted to the state Commission for approval.
Earlier, on November 12, Crew Dragon Endurance with the Crew-3 mission on board docked to the International Space Station (ISS). American astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Mathias Maurer were on board the spacecraft.
It was noted that the astronauts will embark on a six-month mission, living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future exploration of the Moon and Mars.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-3 mission launched on November 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
At the same time, in October, on the air of NASA TV, the head of the NASA program on the ISS, Joel Montalbano, said that Roscosmos and NASA are negotiating cross-flights to the ISS. As part of these flights, the Russian cosmonaut will go to the station on Crew Dragon.
