Russia is bringing a NASA astronaut to the space station under a new “crew swap” deal

– A US astronaut has lifted off to the International Space Station, flying in a seat aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft reserved by the first “crew swap” agreement since the end of the space shuttle program 15 years ago.

NASA’s Francisco “Frank” Rubio launched Wednesday (September 21) with Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin of Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency. Their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft took off at 9:54 am EDT (1354 GMT or 18:54 local time) on a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

After a nine-minute ascent to orbit, the Soyuz crew set off to meet with the space station. Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio are scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory at 1:11 p.m. EDT (1711 GMT) and dock their Soyuz with the Rassvet mini-research module after orbiting the Earth twice.

After allowing time to equalize the pressure on either side of the spacecraft’s hatches, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will come aboard the station and join the Expedition 67 crew, including Commander Oleg Artemyev, Cosmonauts Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov , NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren and Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio are scheduled to spend six months in orbit.

“I think we’re all very excited about the whole mission,” Rubio said at a NASA press conference in August. “We’ve spent a lot of time training for EVAs or spacewalks, so I think we’re all excited to hopefully participate.” And there are some really great biological experiments that I’m looking forward to [such as the] Biofabrication experiment the possibilities of which – possibly being able to make human organs – would be just phenomenal for our ability to deal with human diseases here on Earth.

“Things like that are almost overwhelming when you think about it, aren’t they? And the fact that in small but meaningful ways we can play a part in making that a reality is really exciting,” he said.

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will join Expedition 68 when command is handed over from Artemyev to Cristoforetti, who will become the first European woman to lead a space station crew after a handover ceremony scheduled for September 28.

However, Cristoforetti’s time as commander will be short. She is scheduled to return to Earth in October with Hines, Lindgren and Watkins in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Freedom.” Her departure follows, as currently planned, the arrival of NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), astronaut Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina, Roscosmos’ only female cosmonaut, on SpaceX’s Dragon “Endurance.”

Cristoforetti will hand over command to Prokopyev before returning to Earth.

Rubio and Kikina’s trips to space were arranged under a new crew-exchange agreement between NASA and Roscosmos. By flying in each other’s crew members, the two space agencies ensure that at least one US astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut are always on board the station, a necessity to keep the complex fully operational.

“I think this crew swap really represents the continued efforts of the amazing teams on both sides and the amazing people who made this possible,” Rubio said. “I think it’s important that human spaceflight and exploration – something both agencies are incredibly passionate about – remain, in moments of potential attention elsewhere, a form of diplomacy and partnership where we find common ground and continue to achieve things together.” be able.”

In exchange for Rubio’s flight on Soyuz, Kikina was assigned to SpaceX’s Dragon. The crew swap, which lasted when NASA was still flying its winged space shuttles, replaces NASA buying seats from Russia. Between 2006 and 2020, NASA acquired 71 seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft at an average cost of $56.3 million per seat (or $3.9 billion total).

Prokopyev, 47, is on his second flight into space. He previously served as a flight engineer on the station’s 56th and 57th Expeditionary Crews, spending 197 days in orbit in 2018.

Petelin, 39, and Rubio, 46, are on their first spaceflight. Petelin was selected to be a cosmonaut in 2012, five years before Rubio, a US Army flight surgeon, began his training as a NASA astronaut.

Soyuz MS-22 is Russia’s 68th Soyuz launched for the International Space Station since 2000 and 151st to fly since 1967.