After months of negotiation, and amid the backdrop of geopolitical tensions on the ground, the space agencies in both the U.S. and Russia reached an agreement to resume crew swaps on future spaceflights to the International Space Station.

The agreement comes one day shy of the 47th anniversary of the historic first handshake in space between Apollo astronaut Thomas P. Stafford and cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov. It also happened to come out the same day that the Kremlin declared that Dmitry Rogozin was being removed as the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos


What You Need To Know

  • Two cosmonauts have been officially named as part of SpeceX's Crew-5 and Crew-6 missions

  • NASA also announced two of its astronauts will fly aboard upcoming Russian Soyuz missions to the International Space Station

  • The news coincided with announcement that Dmitry Rogozin will no longer serve as the head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos

On Friday, NASA confirmed in a statement that a new deal with the Russian space agency, Rosocosmos, had been reached with the first of these integrated crew missions happening as early as Sept. 21.

That is when NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will serve as a flight engineer aboard the Soyuz MS-22 as part of the Expedition 68 crew.

“Flying integrated crews ensures there are appropriately trained crew members on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks,” NASA said in a statement. “It also protects against contingencies such as a problem with any crew spacecraft, serious crew medical issues, or an emergency aboard the station that requires a crew and the vehicle they are assigned to return to Earth sooner than planned.”

First cosmonauts on a commercial spacecraft

In exchange for NASA astronauts being able to fly aboard upcoming Soyuz flights as part of the “no-exchange-of-funds arrangement,” two cosmonauts were officially announced as being the first to fly aboard a commercial spacecraft in the U.S. 

NASA confirmed that Roscosmos assigned Anna Kikina as part of the Expedition 67/68 crew and Andrei Fedyaev as part of the Expedition 68/69 crew. 

Kikina, the only current female cosmonaut, will be joining the SpaceX Crew-5 mission, also targeting a September launch. Kikina joins NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata. 

Back in December, Rogozin, the now former director general of Rosocosmos, announced that Kikina would be their choice for a crew swap in 2022.

Fedyaey will be joining NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg on the Crew-6 mission targeting spring 2023.

Americans return to Soyuz flights

Frank Rubio will be joined by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin. Prokopyev flew as a part of Expedition 56/57 in 2018 with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor. 

According to a translation of his biography on Roscosmos’ website, Petelin received the qualification of “test cosmonaut” in 2014 and first began training as part of the Expedition 65 backup crew in October 2020. This upcoming mission would be his first flight to space.

The MS-22 launch would also be the first mission for Rubio. He was selected as part of the 2017 astronaut class, nicknamed the “Turtles.” He would become the fifth member of that class to go to space. 

Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines are currently on the ISS as part of the Crew-4 mission. Kayla Barron and Raja Chari were half of the Crew-3 astronauts. 

In addition to Rubio’s flight in September, NASA also announced that Loral O’Hara would be flying as a flight engineer and a part of the Expedition 69 crew. That flight aboard the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft along with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub would launch in spring 2023.

Russia’s new space chief

With the ouster of the often provocative Rogozin, Russia announced that its deputy prime minister of space and defense, Yury Borisov, will now be stepping into the role. Russia has so far not further elaborated on the reasoning for the change.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the decrees to make the change official. Rogozin, who oversaw Russia space program since 2018, has made a number of incendiary statements over the years, including announcing in March that Russia would no longer deliver rocket engines to the U.S.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) President Tory Bruno assured back in February that all of the RD-180 engines needed to fly the remaining Atlas V missions were in the ULA factory in Decatur, Ala., before that announcement.

Rogozin was also sanctioned by the U.S. back in 2014 following Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

Earlier this month, NASA issued a statement of condemnation after cosmonauts aboard the ISS posed with the flags of the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic. A now deleted caption previously called the moment “liberation day” for those regions that was celebrated “both on Earth and in space,” per Google Translate.

“NASA strongly rebukes Russia using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s primary function among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes,” said NASA said in an emailed statement to Spectrum News.

Following the rare rebuke of Roscosmos, in response to a question from Spectrum News, NASA clarified on July 8 that they were still working towards the agreement to share crew aboard each other’s spacecrafts.

“NASA is working toward an agreement with Roscosmos whereby we would routinely fly astronauts and cosmonauts cooperatively on each other’s spacecraft to the International Space Station to help ensure safe operation.”

For historical context, the first flight of a Russian cosmonaut on board a U.S. space shuttle was back on STS-60 in 1994.