On September 28, the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft was launched using a Falcon 9 launch vehicle
TASS-DOSSIER. On September 28, 2024, at 20:17 Moscow time, the American company SpaceX launched from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome (state Florida, USA) the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Participants of the Crew-9 work mission - Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov and American astronaut Nick Hague - went to the International Space Station (ISS).
TASS has prepared a material about the Crew-9 mission.
Cross flights
The SpaceX company of entrepreneur Elon Musk, under contract with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has been delivering crews to the International Space Station on its Crew Dragon ship since 2020.
In July 2022 Roscosmos and NASA have signed an agreement on cross-flights to the ISS: Russian cosmonauts on American Crew Dragon, American astronauts on Russian Soyuz MS spacecraft. The negotiations, which have been conducted since 2021, were not prevented by the tightening of sanctions against Russia, which followed the start of a special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine in February 2022. As explained in Roscosmos, the implementation of the agreement allows, in case of cancellation or significant delay of the launch of a Russian or American spacecraft, to ensure the presence on board the orbital station of at least one Roscosmos cosmonaut and one NASA astronaut to service the Russian and American segments, respectively.
Alexander Gorbunov became the ninth participant in the current Russian-American cross-flight program and the fifth Russian cosmonaut, a crew member of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. First, in September 2022, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio (as part of the ISS-68 expedition) was brought to the station on Soyuz MS-22. In October 2022, Anna Kikina (a member of the Crew-5 mission) was the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on Crew Dragon. In 2023, the American Crew Dragon brought two Roscosmos cosmonauts to the ISS: in March - Andrey Fedyaev (Crew-6), in August - Konstantin Borisov (Crew-7). In September 2023, American Laurel O'Hara (as part of the ISS-70/71 expedition) went to the station on the Russian Soyuz MS-24. In March 2024, Russian Alexander Grebenkin was delivered to the ISS on Crew Dragon (Crew-8 mission) and American Tracy Dyson on Soyuz MS-25 (flew with the participants of the 21st visiting expedition). On September 11, 2024, the Russian Soyuz MS-26 brought American Donald Pettit to the station as part of the ISS-72 expedition.
The Crew-8 Mission
After the Crew Dragon ship docks with the ISS, Alexander Gorbunov and Nick Hague will join Russians Alexander Grebenkin, Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Wagner and Americans Matthew Dominic, Michael Barratt, Barry Wilmore, Donald Pettit, Janet Epps, Sunita Williams who are currently on the ISS. Working cosmonauts and astronauts arrived at the orbital station in 2024 at different times - as participants in the Crew-8 mission (in March), the first manned Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission on the American Boeing Starliner ship (in June) and the ISS-72 expedition on Soyuz MS-24 (September 11).
Initially, Crew-9 consisted of four people - Alexander Gorbunov, Nick Hague, as well as Americans Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. The mission was supposed to launch on August 18, 2024. However, due to problems (helium leaks in the propulsion system) of the Starliner ship, on which Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams arrived, the launch of the mission was postponed to September, and the crew of Crew-9 was eventually reduced. For safety reasons, the Starliner was returned from orbit on September 7 in unmanned mode. Wilmore and Williams had to stay on the ISS (the CFT mission was originally designed for eight days). Now, they are expected to return to Earth together with Gorbunov and Hague in February 2025.
Crew
Nick Hague is a NASA astronaut, commander of the Crew-9 mission. He was born on September 25, 1975 in Belleville, California. Kansas, USA). In 1998, he received a bachelor's degree in space engineering from the United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, Kansas), and a master's degree in space and aviation engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. He served in the US Air Force, then joined the Space Forces (CS), Colonel of the US CS. Since 2000, he served at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque (state New Mexico). In 2003-2004, he was trained at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base (state California). Then he was the commander of the aviation unit of the 416th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, performed test flights on various aircraft (including the F-16, F-15, T-38). He participated in the international military operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. He served in the Office of Spacecraft of the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (state Ohio). Since 2006, he has taught at the Department of Astronautics at the United States Air Force Academy. Since 2009, he has been a consultant on national defense and foreign policy issues in the U.S. Senate. Subsequently, he worked as Deputy head of the Research and Development Department at the United Organization for the Fight against Improvised Explosive Devices at the US Department of Defense. In 2013, he was selected for the NASA detachment, and in 2015 he was appointed an astronaut. Prior to the launch of the mission, Crew-9 completed one orbital flight (202 days, 15 hours, 45 minutes): in March- October 2019, he was a flight engineer for Soyuz MS-10 and the ISS-57/58 expedition to the International Space Station.
Alexander Gorbunov is a test cosmonaut of Roscosmos, a specialist of the Crew-9 mission. He was born on May 24, 1990 in the city of Zheleznogorsk (Kursk region). In 2014, he graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) specialty "Space aircraft and upper stages" (qualification - engineer). After studying at the military department of the MAI (2009-2012), he was awarded the rank of "reserve lieutenant". He worked as a technician (2012-2014) and an engineer (2014-2018) in the design department of transport cargo ships of S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (Gorod Korolev, Moscow region). Participant of the second open selection for the Roscosmos cosmonaut squad (2017-2018). In 2018, he was recommended for enlistment in the detachment as a candidate for test cosmonauts. In 2020, after completing a general space training course, he received the qualification of "test cosmonaut". At the beginning of 2024, he was included in the crew of Crew-9. I had no experience of space flights before the start of the mission.
