Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Josh Kutryk entered the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday night, hours after NASA said his SpaceX Dragon capsule made the fastest trip to the orbiting laboratory by any U.S. spacecraft.
The capsule, named Grace, docked with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. Eastern time. NASA put the trip from launch at seven hours and 55 minutes.
The hatch then opened at 9:19 p.m. Kutryk floated in with NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. They joined the seven members of the station’s current expedition crew already aboard, bringing the ISS population to 11.
Kutryk spoke to Canadians during the welcome ceremony. “It’s been a while since there was a Canadian here,” he said. “It feels really good to have CSA back. The Canada flag back.” He added that he was looking forward to a good mission, after some sleep.
Short handover
Crew-12, which arrived in February, is due home soon. Dana Weigel, manager, Low Earth Orbit Program, NASA Johnson, said its earliest undocking is Oct. 5, with weather checks starting Saturday. The overlap with the new crew is deliberately short. The station has two Dragon docking ports, and one must be free for SpaceX’s next cargo resupply mission, planned for Oct. 13.
That cargo Dragon carries the last of the station’s upgraded roll-out solar arrays, which crews will install on spacewalks. Weigel said the installation has to fit a narrow window set by sunlight and heat limits.
Research plans
Weigel said Crew-13 will work with tissues grown from human stem cells, used to model diseases and test drugs for conditions such as heart disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s. The crew will also study blood flow in weightlessness and watch for blood clots, a risk on long flights. A new plant-growth system will let them grow, harvest and regrow crops, rather than rely on single-use grow pads.
Canada’s role
Mathieu Caron, who directs astronauts, life sciences and space medicine at the CSA, said the flight is the first time a CSA astronaut has taken part in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, under which NASA buys flights on privately built spacecraft. Canadian studies will look at how weightlessness affects the body and how to reduce the effects, he said. That work could also yield diagnostic techniques for remote communities such as those in northern Canada.
Asked by SpaceQ about collaboration between astronauts, Caron said David Saint-Jacques, who flew to the station in 2018, is serving as the family escort for Kutryk’s relatives. Public interest is up after two Canadian astronauts flew this year, with Jeremy Hansen going around the moon on Artemis II and Kutryk now on the station. “I’ve been in the business for about three decades, and for the first time, my kids think I’m cool,” Caron said.
The CSA’s active astronaut corps stands at three: Kutryk, Saint-Jacques and Jenni Gibbons. Caron said the agency’s focus is getting each of them a flight, and it is not planning a new recruitment campaign in the short term, though one will eventually be needed.
Asked about Canada’s role by a CBC reporter, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said talks with the CSA on a lunar base have been “extremely fruitful.” He said NASA will count on Canada’s robotics expertise, shown by Canadarm on the shuttle and the station, in the moon base architecture. His remarks follow NASA’s decision to pause the Lunar Gateway, the planned lunar space station to which Canada had been set to contribute the Canadarm3 robotic arm.
Launch-day notes
Julianna Scheiman, director, NASA Science and Dragon Programs, SpaceX, said the Crew-13 capsule’s emergency crew egress slides, sometimes called chutes, deployed after liftoff. SpaceX knew that could happen in what she called a robust launch environment. It was “no harm, no foul,” she said, adding that SpaceX will work to keep them from deploying again.
SpaceX flew three Falcon rockets Thursday: the crew launch from Florida, a Transporter-18 rideshare mission from California that carried three Canadian satellites, and a Falcon Heavy carrying a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, which lifted off late Thursday night.