Astronauts who missed out last year finally get chance in space

Astronauts sidelined for the past year by Boeing’s Starliner trouble blasted off to the International Space Station on Friday, getting a lift from SpaceX.

The US-Japanese-Russian crew of four rocketed from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre. They will replace colleagues who launched to the space station in March as fill-ins for Nasa’s two stuck astronauts.

Their SpaceX capsule should reach the orbiting lab this weekend and stay for at least six months.

Zena Cardman, a biologist and polar explorer who should have launched last year, was ditched along with another Nasa crewmate to make room for Starliner’s star-crossed test pilots.

The botched Starliner demo forced Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to switch to SpaceX to get back from the space station more than nine months after departing on what should have been a week-long trip.

Ensuring their safe return “meant stepping aside”, Ms Cardman said before her launch.

“Every astronaut wants to be in space. None of us want to stay on the ground, but it’s not about me,” said Ms Cardman, the flight commander.

Even after launch, “things can change at the last minute, so I’ll count myself very fortunate when the hatch opens (to the space station)”, she said.

Nasa’s Mike Fincke – Ms Cardman’s co-pilot – was the back-up for Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams on Starliner, making those three still the only ones certified to fly it.

Mr Fincke and Japan’s Kimiya Yui, former military officers with previous spaceflight experience, were training for Starliner’s second astronaut mission. With Starliner grounded until 2026, Nasa switched the two to the latest SpaceX flight.

Rounding out the crew is Russia’s Oleg Platonov. The former fighter pilot was pulled a few years ago from the Russian Soyuz flight line-up because of an undisclosed health issue that he said has since been resolved.

To save money in light of tight budgets, Nasa is looking to increase its space station stays from six months to eight months, a move already adopted by Russia’s space agency.

SpaceX is close to certifying its Dragon capsules for longer flights, which means the newly launched crew could be up there until April.

Meanwhile, Russia’s space chief has visited the United States to discuss plans for continued co-operation between Moscow and Washington on the International Space Station and lunar research with Nasa’s acting chief, the first such face-to-face meeting in more than seven years.

Dmitry Bakanov, the director of the state space corporation Roscosmos, met on Thursday with Nasa’s new acting administrator, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, on a visit to attend the launch of the crew to the space station.

Roscosmos said Mr Bakanov and Mr Duffy discussed “further work on the International Space Station, co-operation on lunar programmes, joint exploration of deep space and continued co-operation on other space projects.”