NASA Likely to Move Some Astronauts Off Starliner Due to Extended Delays
upstart writes:
NASA likely to move some astronauts off Starliner due to extended delays:
NASA will not make an official announcement for weeks or months, but two sources say the space agency is moving several astronauts from Boeing's Starliner spacecraft onto SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle for upcoming missions to the International Space Station.
The assignments are not final-they have yet to go through the formal approval process of the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, which includes all international partners-but sources say NASA's rookie astronauts who have not yet flown to space will move off the Boeing vehicle due to its ongoing delays.
The most likely scenario is that Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, and Jeannette Epps will now fly on the SpaceX Crew-5 mission, targeted for launch no earlier than August 2022 on a Falcon 9 rocket. They are likely to be joined by an international partner astronaut, probably Japan's Koichi Wakata, for the mission.
These represent substantial changes for NASA and its astronauts. Mann has been assigned to the Crew Flight Test for Starliner since August 2018. This is the pivotal flight that will take place after Boeing's upcoming uncrewed test flight of Starliner, Orbital Flight Test-2, or OFT-2. At the time of Mann's assignment, Cassada was assigned to the first operational flight of Starliner, a regular rotation mission to the space station called "Starliner-1." Epps was added to the Starliner-1 mission a year ago.
A NASA spokesperson, Kyle Herring, declined to confirm any information about the new assignments.
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