Astronaut Josh Kutryk, who will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) as soon as next week, reflected in a video press conference today (Sept. 24) from quarantine about the various turns in his journey to get to space, now set for no earlier than (NET) Oct. 1 at 11:10 a.m. EDT.
“I’ve come to see that as one of the most important skills to work on, actually … is being able to deal with constant change,” the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA’s) Kutryk said of being an astronaut. He was speaking in Houston ahead of his expected flight to the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday (Sept. 26), to continue quarantine nearby the launch area.
He allowed that “you sort of do feel the burden of having to shoulder some of that” change to scheduling, especially as there are implications for his family and small children. But, he added, “you have to be ready for that change, so I’ve tried my best to maintain an even keel through it—and through it all, the priority has been being ready when called to go fly.”
Kutryk’s most visible part of reaching for space has taken nearly 20 years—almost half his lifetime. As a 44-year-old RCAF test pilot by training who always wanted to be an astronaut, Kutryk initially made it to the final-four round of a CSA astronaut selection in 2009 in which he was not selected. Eight years and a few academic degrees later, he gamely tried again the next time CSA opened applications—and succeeded, being named one of two astronaut candidates in 2017.
Because CSA’s share of the ISS contribution is a little over 2%, with contributions tied to seating, Kutryk expected a wait for space. That wait appeared to be nearing its end with an assignment on Boeing Starliner for 2024. Various, complicated issues on that spacecraft indefinitely delayed his flight, however, so the ISS consortium reassigned Kutryk earlier this year to a SpaceX Dragon. The second mission initially was set to launch NET Sept. 12, but as sometimes happens, a technical issue delayed things yet again until at least October.
“There’s millions and millions of parts that have to work together both technically on the rocket, but also with everything else with all the organizations, the science teams, the systems teams, and everything else to come together,” Kutryk noted of the latest delay, which happened due to an oxidizer leak in Dragon’s propulsion system.
The crew was kept closely apprised of progress on the leak, which Kutryk said was a “very small, minor signature.” SpaceX used the time to not only address the leak, but also to swap out some components on the spacecraft, he said. “It makes us all feel that much more confident in the ride that we have to space.”
Kutryk and crewmates Jessica Watkins (NASA commander), Luke Delaney (NASA pilot) and Sergey Teteryatnikov (Roscosmos) are expected to fly to the ISS aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, for an arrival at the station around 8 p.m. that same night. They are manifested to stay in space for about half a year.
Kutryk will be the second CSA astronaut to fly to space in 2026, after Jeremy Hansen went around the moon for Artemis 2 in April. Kutryk will also be helming the first CSA mission to the ISS since David Saint-Jacques’ in 2018-19, and will be the second Canadian overall to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon after entrepreneur Mark Pathy aboard the private Axiom Ax-1 ISS mission in 2022.
Plenty of Canadian representation will be flying along with Kutryk—a suite of experiments, Kutryk’s great-grandfather’s pocket watch, small mementos of Canadian organizations with which Kutryk is affiliated, and naturally, “a lot of Canadian flags.”
“I’m proud to be doing this mission as a Canadian,” he said, adding that he feels even more so these days “with some of the headlines in the news, as an example.” (Very importantly, Kutryk did not elaborate on what topic he meant to refer to.)
More broadly—speaking more to individual astronaut personalities—Kutryk said the ISS consortium is very careful in choosing how to bring crews together for several months in space. “Really try to think about the challenge of that, of going with three other people who you didn’t choose into an area that is in total size of maybe an average medium-sized house in Canada, but it’s all small tunnels and compartments,” he said.
He pointed to informal relationships he has built with the crew, such as with Watkins—someone he has known for a long time, someone with whom he is not only a neighbour, but so close as a friend that also their families are friends. Kutryk also alluded to NASA’s extensive trust-building process among the international crew, including training scenarios, simulations, international travel, and remote expeditions, all to test people before heading to the ISS.
In response to a SpaceQ question, Kutryk said in recent weeks his focus has been “structured reviews” to keep the most urgent and relevant training in front of the crew’s minds. In quarantine, for example, Kutryk went to the “The Dome”—a simulator at JSC for being in the ISS cupola—to practice flying Canadarm2 for berthing cargo spacecraft. The refresher training during quarantine is quite targeted (covering perhaps the last five minutes of procedures, in this example), but critical.
“That’s a great example of a skill that is critically important to the future of station,” Kutryk said. “If we mess that up, if we miss the capture, or if we bump into something doing the capture, it can quite literally mean the end of space station. It’s a time-perishable skill. It involves very fine motor skills on a really complicated control mechanism, flying this 50-metre arm around, and so we find that that’s an example of a skill that perishes with time.”
Other examples of recent refresher training have included select aspects of extravehicular activities, or practicing equalizing the pressures of Dragon and the ISS upon docking—as well as the subsequent “hatch choreography.”
In other comments, Kutryk also noted he can’t wait to look out the window when he gets to space, as well as to execute the work he is trained for as a test pilot: “Really, operationally procedurally driven things where you are doing all this technical work, but at the core of it, you’re operating really valuable, complicated technology and high risk, high consequence environments. That’s what I’ve always enjoyed doing most in my career on Earth, and I think that’s what I look forward to the most in space.”