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Two astronauts who are expected to fly on the first Boeing crew capsule missions will instead fly into orbit with SpaceX, NASA announced today (October 6).
The agency has reassigned astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada to SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission, which is slated to launch towards the International space station not until fall 2022.
Mann and Cassada had both trained on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, Mann in preparation for the spacecraft’s first crewed test flight to the orbiting laboratory, and Cassada for Starliner’s first operational mission.
Related: Photos of Boeing’s first Starliner test flight
However, it is not known when any of these Boeing flights will take off; Starliner must pass an unmanned test mission to the space station before it can transport people. The capsule made a first attempt during this test flight in December 2019, but suffered several glitches which prevented a planned meeting with the orbiting laboratory. Boeing had planned to launch a second test, called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), at the end of July this year, but discovered a problem with some valves in the Starliner propulsion system.
The valve problem is still not resolved and OFT-2 may end up being delayed until 2022NASA officials said.
During this time, EspaceX has already launched a crewed test mission and two operational flights to the in-orbit lab with its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, and the company is preparing for takeoff of its third contract flight, Crew-3, more late this month. (Boeing and SpaceX both have multi-billion dollar contracts with NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which were signed in 2014.)
“NASA decided it was important to make these reallocations to give Boeing time to complete Starliner development while continuing plans for astronauts to gain space flight experience for future mission needs. ‘agency, “NASA officials said. said in a statement today. The other astronauts flying on Crew-5 will be announced later, they added.
Crew-5 will be the first space flight for Mann and Cassada.
“It has been the opportunity of a lifetime to train on a brand new spacecraft, the Boeing Starliner, and it has been fantastic working with the Boeing team,” Mann said in the same statement. “I am delighted to have the opportunity to train on another new spacecraft – SpaceX Crew dragon – and appreciates the NASA teams who made this possible. I am ready to fly and serve on the International Space Station. “
Cassada expressed similar sentiments.
“Cross-training on the two programs is a unique opportunity to learn, but also to provide valuable information to future astronauts piloting these spacecraft,” he said in the same statement. “And, of course, Nicole and I are incredibly excited to be working aboard the International Space Station, executing current operations, and also contributing to future exploration beyond Earth orbit. low.”
Mike Wall is the author of “The low“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about finding alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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