The members of Crew-12, seen here before their mid-February launch, will spend about seven months in orbit instead of the more than eight months previously planned. Credit: SpaceX
WASHINGTON — NASA plans to continue exchanging International Space Station crews about every six months after considering longer stays.
NASA announced May 1 that the next commercial crew mission to the ISS, SpaceX’s Crew-13, will launch in mid-September rather than November. A Crew Dragon spacecraft will bring to the station NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
NASA did not disclose details about its decision to move up the Crew-13 launch, but an agency official said at a May 11 briefing it was part of efforts to maximize use of the ISS before its scheduled retirement at the end of the decade.
“As Administrator Isaacman has talked about, we’re trying to get the most out of station as we can, and so we were able to move up that next mission,” said Bill Spetch, NASA ISS operations and integration manager.
