• threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksM
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    2 months ago

    NASA astronaut Nick Hague will serve as the mission’s commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will serve as mission specialist.

    Probably a bit disappointing for the original commander (Zena Cardman), but an understandable decision by NASA, given the circumstances.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, it sucks, but it was expected. Hopefully she gets to command a future mission, maybe something more lunar.

  • ptfrd@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    If the Boe-CFT mission had gone to plan, Crew-9 would have been scheduled to launch in mid August with Zena Cardman commanding. The article reports that she has just announced that her father died in August, perhaps about a week before what would have been the launch date.

    Got me wondering how situations like that are handled. And what if a close family member dies just a day or two before launch? Or even less time than that?

    On a related matter, I’ve also been wondering at what point the backup crews are ‘stood down’. I don’t think it’s the very last minute. I think there’s a window of time during which any serious issues to do with a member of a primary crew would just result in a scheduled launch not going ahead (as opposed to going ahead on schedule but with a crew member swapped out).