Russian cosmonaut set to fly in Elon Musk's Crew Dragon capsule to ISS in Feb 2023

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos revealed that another cosmonaut will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in a US-made spacecraft in 2023. Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyayev will ride the Crew Dragon spacecraft of Elon Musk’s SpaceX for a mission to the ISS in mid-February, Roscosmos said per TASS News. Fedyayev is part of the Crew-6 mission which falls under the cross-flight agreement between the Russian agency and NASA. 

“Under the cross-flight program Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyayev will go to the International Space Station on the US-crewed spacecraft Crew Dragon as a member of the Crew-6 mission in mid-February, 2023,” Roscosmos said in a statement. The cross-flight program is where Russia will send an American astronaut to space in its Soyuz rocket in return for a cosmonaut's trip in an American spacecraft. 

(Andrey Fedyayev at the Kennedy Space Center; Image: NASA)

The cosmonaut will be joining NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg and Sultan Al Neyadi, the first astronaut from the UAE selected for a long-term ISS mission. Fedyayev will serve as the mission specialist during his ISS trip and is currently training for his spaceflight at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida where the Crew-6 will launch from. 

[Mission Specialist Andrey Fedyaev, Pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, Commander Stephen Bowen, and Mission Specialist Sultan Al Neyadi (left to right); Image: NASA/SpaceX]

Crew-6 will mark the second mission under the US-Russia cross-flight agreement, the first being Crew-5 which launched on October 5. It saw Russia's Anna Kikina become the first female cosmonaut to board a US spacecraft after NASA astronaut Frank Rubio's launch on a Soyuz rocket on September 21. 

The forthcoming mission would be historic as Sultan Al-Neyadi will become the first Arab astronaut to reach space and the first chosen for a six-month-long ISS stay. Before Al-Neyadi, Hazza Al Mansoori was the first to visit the orbiting laboratory on September 25 in 2019 where he spent eight days. Al-Neyadi was selected from a pool of 4,000 candidates and has clocked in around 1,400 hours in exercises preparing for activities such as spacewalks and survival training.