NASA Updates the Planning Manifest for Commercial Crew
The next round of trips to the International Space Station
for NASA's Commercial Crew Program is being planned in collaboration with
business partners SpaceX and Boeing.Eight members of Crew
Launching no sooner than mid-February is the goal for NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the orbiting laboratory. To perform a variety of operational and research tasks, the mission
will transport NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot;
and mission specialist Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander
Grebenkin, to the space station. The Dragon spacecraft and Crew-8 SpaceX Falcon
9 rocket are undergoing routine repair and processing.
For Dominick, Epps, and Grebenkin, this will be their first space mission; for Barratt, it will be
their third. After a brief handover with the agency's Crew-9 mission, Crew-8 is
scheduled to return to Earth in late August 2024.
Flight Test (CFT) for Starliner Crew
As part of NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), the Starliner spaceship will conduct its maiden crewed flight no early than mid-April. CFT is scheduled to launch NASA
astronauts and test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a demonstration
flight to validate the Starliner system's end-to-end capabilities.
Starliner will take out from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, dock with the space station for about eight days,
and land in a western American desert using a parachute and airbags to return
to Earth.
As new information becomes available, NASA will update the CFT readiness status.
Nine Crew In 2024, looking ahead, NASA and SpaceX plan to launch Crew-9, SpaceX's ninth crew rotation trip to the space station for NASA, no earlier than mid-August 21. A four-person
crew will be revealed later.
Mission: 10th
Rotation of Crew Early 2025 is the anticipated date of the tenth commercial crew rotation opportunity to the space station. NASA intends to use this slot for either Boeing's Starliner-1 or
SpaceX's Crew-10 mission. The Starliner-1 date was moved to accommodate the
Crew Flight Test post-flight review and integration of expected learning, final
certification product approvals, and readiness and certification evaluations
completed prior to that mission.