National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Friday NASA Published The decision has been rattling NASA’s top brass for human spaceflight for weeks, after the agency announced the two-person crew for its Crew Dragon mission, scheduled to launch to the International Space Station after Sept. 24.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague will serve as the mission commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov will serve as mission specialist. The necessitation of using the Crew-9 spacecraft meant that a crew of two astronauts was required instead of the usual four. FreeIt is being used as a rescue vehicle for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the space station aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June but were deemed unsafe to return.
Wilmore and Williams will join Crew 9 aboard the space station and are due to return to Earth with Haig and Gorbunov in February next year.
The other side of the story
This represents a significant change from the original configuration of the Crew-9 passenger manifest. NASA announces first team members Crew 9 launched in January last year, carrying three NASA astronauts and Gorbunov. Crew 9 was to be commanded by Zena Cardman, piloted by Haig, with Stephanie Wilson and Gorbunov serving as mission specialists.
At the time, Cardman’s nomination was significant. She would be the first new astronaut with no test pilot experience to lead a NASA space flight. Cardman, a 36-year-old geobiologist, joined NASA in 2017 and is highly regarded by her colleagues. The appointment of a newcomer, who is not a test pilot, to command the Crew 9 mission reflects NASA’s confidence in the autonomous flight capabilities of Dragon, which aims to reach the station autonomously. The nomination was made in 2022 by then-chief astronaut Reid Wiseman, and the Astronaut Office was confident that Cardman, with Hague’s experienced staff by her side, could lead the mission.
The need to rescue Wilmore and Williams changed the situation. Veteran astronaut Joe Acaba, who became director of the Cosmonaut Office in February 2023, was tasked with narrowing down the list to a new crew. To maintain a continuous rotation with the Russian space program, one of the crew members had to be Gorbunov. So Acaba had to choose between Cardman, Haig, and Wilson.
Initially, Acaba relied on Cardman; after all, she was the mission’s original commander. But sources say this caused considerable opposition within the astronaut office. Cardman was well respected, and although Dragon was designed to be fully autonomous, being the only NASA representative aboard the spacecraft would have placed too much of a burden on her. (Russian cosmonauts generally do not receive detailed training in piloting U.S. spacecraft.) A significant percentage of professional astronauts suffer from space sickness within the first few hours of spaceflight.
Some members of the astronaut office argued that Hague was a safer choice. Hague, an Air Force test pilot, survived a disastrous Soyuz spacecraft failure in 2018 and then flew in space for more than six months in 2019. These astronauts said that Hague was a safer choice for NASA if the agency truly wanted to maximize the chances of mission success.
In the end, these opponents won out with support from NASA’s top brass, and Acaba replaced Haig with Cardman. The decision was made before the Flight Readiness Review Board on August 24, but the official announcement wasn’t made until this Friday.
Official NASA statement
“While we have made crew changes in the past for a variety of reasons, reducing the crew size on this flight was a difficult decision to adapt to given that the crew has been trained as a four-person crew,” Acaba said in a news release Friday. “I have the utmost confidence in the entire crew, who have performed outstandingly throughout training for the mission. Zena and Stephanie continue to support their fellow crew members prior to launch, exemplifying what it means to be a professional astronaut.”
Cardman’s news release was also elegantly worded. It was revealed on Friday She revealed that her father, Larry Cardman, passed away three weeks ago. “I’m incredibly proud of the entire crew,” she said, “and I’m confident that Nick and Alex will be up to the task. All four of us are committed to the success of this mission, and Stephanie and I look forward to flying when the time is right.”
I pray her time comes soon.
