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Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk told SpaceQ that Canadians should look at the space program “with a sense of pride” as the next two astronauts in space, including Kutryk, prepare for their missions.
Kutryk is assigned to Starliner-1, the first operational mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. He is up next in 2025 – that’s after the Crewed Flight Test (CFT) brief mission that is expected to launch no earlier than May 1 this year, a date that NASA announced only this month. On board CFT will be Suni Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, both NASA astronauts, with Kutryk working as capcom in Mission Control during the launch phase and other moments of the mission.
Unlike SpaceX’s Dragon, Starliner has had years of extra delays due to numerous operational and technical issues, among them issues with the parachutes and with computer systems. But the commercial crew spacecraft has addressed all of these and is ready for launch, NASA has emphasized, with a careful eye to protecting the safety of all crews.
Starliner-1 is one of two Canadian missions next year, as the Artemis 2 round-the-moon mission with Jeremy Hansen is also expected to lift off in 2025. Kutryk pointed to the decades of robotics and science contributions that the CSA – and its predecessor, the National Research Council – did in the human spaceflight program. Kutryk said that such work is “the path to our future opportunity” both for work in space, and on the ground.
The CSA has been careful to emphasize in recent years that its work in remote environments and health can be pivoted to populations on Earth facing these challenges daily, most especially including northern communities, Indigenous people and seniors. Layered on to this work is more recent CSA emphases in portable food and in artificial intelligence, which both have applications to space as well.
“I hope that Canadians look at my mission and the Artemis 2 mission with pride, with excitement and with a burning desire to keep this awesome legacy and aerospace that we have going forward,” Kutryk said of the next two missions. It’s also a big year in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), of which both astronauts are a part; Hansen and Kutryk are colonels and long-time popularizers of the RCAF activities through ceremonial flights and other outreach.
With the RCAF celebrating its 100th year in 2024, Kutryk recently released a new mission patch that includes an outline of the Silver Dart. The Silver Dart was the first powered and heavier-than-air aircraft that took flight in Canada, successfully making several flights in 1909.
“That was the start of an amazing history that we’ve drawn so many benefits from,” Kutryk said. “I mean, that was 1909. But by the 1950s, we had companies in Canada that were inventing, innovating and building aerospace technology. Stuff like the Avro Arrow didn’t exist anywhere else in the world at the time. We made aerospace development a hallmark of Canadian history and legacy.”
Kutryk also pointed to the importance of teamwork, not only in the RCAF but also in his current mission assignment. Like everyone other astronaut on the CFT and Starliner-1 missions, he’s been working on the assignment for several years. Some members of the ground teams have been at it for close to 15 years, they shared with reporters during a recent tour of NASA Johnson Space Center that SpaceQ attended.
“When you have the same team that’s been working together for a long time, then you come together as a team and you’re better able to react to contingencies and off-nominal situations,” Kutryk said.
“We have a good relationship based on trust, going forward, and I would say that’s the same thing for the whole flight control room involved with Starliner. It’s one thing to know all the procedures and the technical details. It’s another thing to know each other so well, and to have the team dynamic refined so well. You can confidently react to anything, almost, without thinking about it.”
Aside from being used to each other as people, Kutryk emphasized those years in the saddle come with a great deal of technical knowledge – which is needed given Starliner has not yet flown with astronauts on board. (It has flown twice uncrewed, the first time failing to reach the International Space Station – but the second time meeting that and all other major mission goals.)
“It’s new, it’s the prototype, it hasn’t flown with crew,” Kutryk said of Starliner. “It’s on the very leading edge of aerospace technology development, I would say. It’s doing a lot of neat and interesting things that frankly, haven’t really been done before. So you need a team that has been working in that for a long time. You can’t just bring people in at the last minute and fly a vehicle. You really have to use a team that’s been involved in the flight test and development of it over a number of years, so that they understand that.”
Kutryk’s training is split between Starliner and International Space Station training, but he said his mission is “a bit of an oddball” as he is among the first crew to use Starliner for a six-month mission.
“Our time is really spent between training and development work – examples would be testing software, flying the simulator, testing, egress procedures, hardware, all of that,” he said. “For us, testing is wrapped up with training. We’re doing an activity, really, for two purposes: we’re training, but as we do it we’re also testing and proving up the vehicle.”
At the time of the interview on March 22, Kutryk said most of the crew’s time is now focused on Starliner. But as the ISS mission creeps up to the one year before launch mark, more certifications will take place to ensure the crew is ready for the basic skills that are required on station – such as maintenance, robotics, spacewalks and working the standard science stations.
“A good way to think of it, I think, is we are very much in Starliner mode right now with training focused on Starliner – and specifically focused on the launch of CFT. We all support that in different ways. But as soon as that mission goes, we’re going to be refocusing back a little bit more towards ISS, the science training and the operational training.”
Kutryk emphasized that the CSA’s assignments to Starliner-1 and Artemis 2 – both cutting-edge missions for human spaceflight – is “not a coincidence” given how much Canada has proven itself in human spaceflight operations in the last four decades. He also lauded recent federal government policy changes that poured money and resources into moon exploration and the ISS, including extending the ISS participation in Canada to at least 2030 and funding a range of lunar programs that are positioning CSA for future Artemis missions.
“I hope people see that we are exactly where we want to be,” Kutryk said. “Spaceflight is ultimately about the future. It’s about future opportunity and future prosperity for Canada. These missions are going to highlight that, and I hope it’s just the beginning, and that we can continue to trend going forward.”
