NASA assigns Kate Rubins to ISS Expedition 63, 64
/With the Demo-2 Crew Dragon mission underway, we’re starting to get a better picture of how the International Space Station crew manifest will look later this year and into 2021.
According to NASA, astronaut Kate Rubins is slated to fly to the ISS on Oct. 14, 2020, aboard Soyuz MS-17 alongside cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.
This mission would be 41-year-old Rubins’ second trip into space. Her first was in 2016 during Expeditions 48 and 49 between July and October of that year.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins checks a sample for air bubbles before loading it inside the biomolecule sequencer. Credit: NASA
During her first mission, she also participated in two spacewalks totaling 12 hours, 46 minutes. Additionally, she became the first person to sequence DNA from space.
Rubins earned a bachelor's degree in molecular biology from the University of California in 1999 and a doctorate in cancer biology from Stanford University School of Medicine in 2005. She was selected to be an astronaut in 2009.
It was reported by Forbes that NASA paid the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, about $90 million for her seat. It is possible this could be the last time the U.S. space agency plans to make such a purchase.
In fact, according to NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz via a statement to Forbes, the agency has “high confidence that U.S. commercial crew providers will be available in 2020/2021 and that no further Soyuz seat purchases will be necessary.”
However, that still does not mean astronauts won’t be launching to the ISS inside a Russian spacecraft after Rubins’ flight.
File photo of a Soyuz rocket launching three people into space. Credit: NASA
Also in a statement to Forbes, Schierholz said NASA is in discussions with the Russian space agency to ensure future Soyuz and commercial crew spacecraft include at least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut. This would ensure there would always be one American and one Russian at the ISS at all times, even during crew handover periods, be they direct or indirect.
As things stand right now, the Demo-2 Crew Dragon mission, with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, is slated to remain at the ISS until at least mid-to-late summer.
Once the duo returns and the Dragon spacecraft certified for operational flights, the U.S. space agency is expected to move forward with the first official crew rotation flight under the Commercial Crew Program.
Called “Crew-1” by SpaceX, this mission is expected to see NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi fly to the ISS where they will stay for about six months.
Depending on when Crew-1 launches, they’ll either become part of Expedition 63 or Expedition 64. Expedition 63 will formally end when the crew of Soyuz MS-16 departs the outpost with NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. That’s slated to occur on Oct. 21, 2020, about a week after Rubins arrives at the outpost.
