SpaceX’s Crew Mission by NASA Agency

NASA has selected three astronauts to undertake the commercial SpaceX mission. The European Space Agency chose astronaut Maurer for the mission, while NASA chose astronauts Marshburn Tom and Raja Chari. This crew mission is set to be undertaken in 2021.  Raja will be the lead commander of this mission. In 2017, he joined the astronaut corps group, and this will be his first spaceflight. He also happens to be part and parcel of the Artemis team. This is a team of astronauts who can participate in future missions. 

Tom Marshburn has been working with NASA as an astronaut since 2004. Tom was part of the team which participated in the shuttle mission back in 2009. In 2015, he joined ESA’s astronaut corps, and he will be commencing his initial spaceflight. Both the European Space Agency and NASA haven’t mentioned the astronaut who will occupy the spacecraft’s fourth seat. However, the agencies are to reveal the fourth astronaut before the mission commences. 

Only astronauts from the Japanese Space Agency, NASA, and ESA are assigned commercial space missions. One astronaut from JAXA and three from NASA is undertaking the crew-1 mission currently at ISS.  The crew-2 mission is anticipated to be launched in 2021, and it will consist of one astronaut from JAXA and ESA and two from NASA. 

On the other hand, NASA has expressed engrossment in flying Russian cosmonauts on their crew vehicles in return for NASA astronauts to fly on the Soyuz spacecraft. These exchanges are usually carried out of bartering procedures to ensure that at least one Roscosmos and NASA astronaut on ISS. Roscosmos astronaut has, however, been dubious about flying on the commercial crew missions. The ISS committee advised that the Russian officials should contemplate flying on the commercial crew vehicles. 

The launch of crew-3 will definitely overlap crew-2 just as it overlapped crew-2. This means that the first mission, which will be undertaken on Straliner-1, a spacecraft is likely to be delayed up to 2022. Jeanette Epps will join astronauts Josh Cassada and Williams Sunita on that mission.  Josh had already been assigned to the flight previously in 2018. In addition to that, a test flight of the Starliner-1 is scheduled for the 29^th of March 2021. Three NASA astronauts will undertake the test.  

Humans have been living and operating continuously onboard the International Space Station for over 20 years, advancing scientific understanding and demonstrating emerging technology, making research breakthroughs unlikely on Earth. Two hundred and forty-two individuals from 19 nations have toured a unique microgravity laboratory as a global endeavor, which has hosted over 3,000 scientific and learning studies from researchers in 108 countries and areas.