SpaceX Crew-5 is the fifth crewed operational NASA

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially-operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International S ...

flight of a

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

spacecraft, and the eighth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission launched on 5 October 2022 and transported four crew members to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...

(ISS), docking there on 6 October 2022 at 21:01 UTC. Two NASA

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

, one JAXA astronaut, and one Russian cosmonaut are participating in the mission. Three of the crew members were assigned following delays to Boeing's Starliner program. Commander Nicole Mann was reassigned to the flight from Boeing's Boe-CFT mission, while Pilot Josh Cassada and Mission Specialist

Koichi Wakata is a Japanese engineer and a JAXA astronaut. Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station. During a nearly two-decade career in spaceflight, he ha ...

transferred from Boeing Starliner-1.

Anna Kikina Anna Yuryevna Kikina (russian: Анна Юрьевна Кикина, born 27 August 1984 in Novosibirsk) is a Russian engineer and cosmonaut, selected in 2012. She is the only woman cosmonaut currently in active service at Roscosmos. In June ...

was reassigned from

Soyuz MS-22 Soyuz MS-22 is a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station with a crew of three launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 21 September 2022. The launch was previously planned for 13 September 2022, but in the provisional flight m ...

. Three of the four crew members are making their first space flight while Wakata is a veteran of four previous space flights.

Crew

This mission is the first Crew Dragon mission to fly a Russian cosmonaut,

who was selected in July 2022 for this mission as a part of the

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

crew swap system of keeping at least one

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

astronaut and one

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

cosmonaut on each of the crew rotation missions. This ensures both countries have a presence on the station, and the ability to maintain their separate systems if either Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are grounded for an extended period. This is the first time a Russian cosmonaut flew on a U.S. spacecraft since Nikolai Budarin flew on STS-113 and also first launch of a Russian cosmonaut on a U.S. space capsule. The seat exchange was approved in June 2022 (by the Russians only).

Mission

The fifth SpaceX operational mission in the

(CCP) launched on 5 October 2022 and is scheduled to last approximately six months.

References

{{People currently in space SpaceX Dragon 2 2022 in spaceflight October 2022 events in the United States SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA SpaceX human spaceflights Future human spaceflights