NASA makes call on which Crew-9 members get to fly making room for Starliner astronauts
A Russian and the first Space Force astronaut will get to fly up to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission next month as NASA chose which two of four previously assigned crew will have to sit the flight out to make room for the two astronauts of Boeing’s Starliner who need a ride home.
NASA announced it was sticking with veteran NASA astronaut and now U.S. Space Force Col. Nick Hague along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to act as commander and mission specialist, respectively, for the mission while previously assigned Crew-9 members and NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson will have to stay home.
That will leave two seats on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew up to the ISS on Boeing’s Starliner having arrived on June 6. NASA last week decided Starliner wasn’t safe enough for them to return home after the Boeing spacecraft suffered thruster issues and helium leaks on the trip up. Starliner is slated to undock and leave the ISS as an uncrewed spacecraft as early as next Friday making room for Crew-9’s arrival.
Hague, who previously flew to space as a member of the Air Force has since switched to the Space Force. He and rookie Gorbunov are slated to climb aboard the Crew Dragon on Sept. 24 and launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, which is making its human spaceflight debut for SpaceX. All previous Crew Dragon launches have come from neighboring Kennedy Space Center, but that pad will be amidst prep for a Falcon Heavy launch of the Europe Clipper mission for NASA.
The duo would become part of Expedition 72 and fly home in February 2025 with Williams and Wilmore as a quartet.
Cardman, a member of the 2017 NASA astronaut class known as “The Turtles,” would have been making her first launch. She had previously been tapped to be commander. Wilson, who was part of the 1996 class of NASA astronauts, has flown three times, all on Space Shuttle Discovery for the STS-121, STS-120 and STS-131 missions logging 42 days in space.
NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba, who once was a science teacher at multiple Central Florida schools and a veteran astronaut himself, made the call to make Hague, a spaceflight veteran of one successful and one aborted launch, the new commander and maintain NASA’s rideshare partnership with Russia by keeping Gorbunov, who making his first spaceflight.
“While we’ve changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four,” said Acaba. “I have the utmost confidence in all our crew, who have been excellent throughout training for the mission. Zena and Stephanie will continue to assist their crewmates ahead of launch, and they exemplify what it means to be a professional astronaut.”
Cardman would have been the penultimate NASA astronaut of 11-member graduating class of “The Turtles” to make it to space with only classmate Jonny Kim having not received a flight assignment. But last week NASA announced Kim will fly to the ISS in March 2025 on the the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-27 from Kazakhstan.
Cardman, meanwhile, remains open for reassignment as does Wilson.
“I am deeply proud of our entire crew, and I am confident Nick and Alex will step into their roles with excellence,” said Cardman. “All four of us remain dedicated to the success of this mission, and Stephanie and I look forward to flying when the time is right.”
Wilson added, “I know Nick and Alex will do a great job with their work aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 72.”
Hague’s first try at spaceflight technically was considered by Air Force standards as having reached space. He and Russian crewmate cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin launched aboard a Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan in 2018, but it blasted away from a malfunctioning booster and didn’t make orbit. The altitude of the Soyuz capsule passed the 50-mile mark the U.S. considers for awarding astronaut status, although it’s shy of the Karman line, which is the internationally recognized line for having made it to space at around 62 miles high.
“I got to experience a few seconds of weightlessness and I was able to watch a few things float around in the capsule,” Hague said. “I was also able to look out the window primarily to make sure, ‘Hey, are we in a good attitude? Are we stable? Are we ready to come back down?’ But also to look out the window and realize, you know, looking down at the curvature of the Earth and out into the blackness of space, and realizing I got close but it wasn’t going to be this time.”
The duo got another shot, though, five months later in 2019, and that time they made it past the Karman line along with NASA astronaut Christina Koch. Hague spent more than 200 days on board the ISS. So Crew-9 becomes his third or second flight to space depending on who you ask.
Hague’s return from space in 2019 led him to a post-flight role at the Pentagon with the Air Force, but working as leadership as director of test and evaluation for the newly formed Space Force. In 2021, Hague transferred from the Air Force to the Space Force, which as of March 2024 and just over four years old has about 14,000 military and civilian Guardians. Since August 2022, Hague had been back with NASA working on the Starliner program.
Roughly two-thirds of NASA astronauts have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, but none have launched as an active member of the Space Force. There has been one, though, who transferred to the Space Force while already in space. That was Col. Mike Hopkins during his stint on the ISS as part of Crew-1. So he flew up as an Airman and down as a Guardian.
“Being a part of this mission is a unique honor, but it’s truly a collective effort,” Hague said in a Space Force press release. “Guardians worldwide ensure safe and secure operations of critical systems for launch and on station.”