NASA
NASA today announced the four astronauts that will travel aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station later this year: Zena Cardman will be the Mission Commander, Nick Hague will be the Pilot, along with Stephanie Wilson and Russian Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will travel to ISS no earlier than August 2024.
Photo: UNC Chapel Hill
Zena Cardman
Cardman will be making her first spaceflight on this mission. She is a Williamsburg, Virginia, native and holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology plus a master’s in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While a doctoral candidate, Cardman researched geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep-sea sediments. Since joining NASA, she has supported real-time ISS operations and development for lunar surface exploration.
Nick Hague
Photo: NASA
For Hague, this mission will be his third launch and his second mission to ISS. During his first launch in 2018, Hague and his crewmate Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin were aboard Soyuz MS-10 when they experienced a booster failure resulting in an in-flight launch abort. The spacecraft landed safely with no serious injuries. Resiliently, only five months later, Hague launched aboard Soyuz MS-12 and served as a flight engineer aboard the space station during Expeditions 59 and 60. He has spent 203 days in space and has conducted three spacewalks as part of his duties aboard ISS.
Photo: NASA
Stephanie Wilson
Photo: NASA
Wilson has spent 42 days in space aboard three separate space shuttle Discovery missions, STS-121, STS-120, and STS-131. A graduate of Engineering Science from Harvard University, she also earned a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas in Austin. Wilson has been with NASA for 29 years and has served as the integration branch chief for NASA’s Astronaut Office, focusing on International Space Station systems and payload operations. She also served as the acting chief of NASA’s Program and Project Integration Office at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Aleksandr Gorbunov
The mission will be Gorbunov’s first trip to space and the station. Hailing from Zheleznogorsk, in south-central Russia, he studied engineering with qualifications in spacecraft and upper stages from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Gorbunov graduated from the military department with a specialty in operating and repairing aircraft, helicopters, and aircraft engines. He previously worked for engineer for Rocket Space Corporation Energia and since joining the Russian cosmonaut corps, he has supported Russian cargo missions to ISS.
This will be the ninth rotational mission to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX has not announced any details surrounding which Crew Dragon that they are planning to use for this flight, nor whether the launch will be at LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center or at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space For station.
