Full crew restored (as soon as they dock in a few hours).
It’s a little weird that this will be one of the 8-9 month rotations and we don’t really know the Crew-13 roster, launch dates, or spacecraft. It feels pretty safe to assume that it won’t be Starliner even if the uncrewed one in April goes flawlessly, but maybe I’m too jaded against that program.
Don’t know if I’m jaded but I’d guess about 5-10% chance of Starliner 2 happening before SpaceX Crew-13.
Relevant Steve Stich comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12pFrHAuQI 38:23 - 39:50 (And also 30:46 - 33:25)
Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Arrival & Welcome Remarks
- 4:00:30 looks like Fedyaev and Adenot jointly opening the hatch. Don’t remember seeing footage like this before.
- 4:25:45 - 4:26:00 Any Russian-speakers fancy translating Fedyaev’s joke? I fear that I’m missing out :)
He basically says, “I’m happy to be here again, smelling the unmistakable scent of the ISS.” Must be some cosmonaut inside joke?
It’s farts.
This is also the 13th launch of serving NASA astronauts on Dragon. (It’s the 12th operational mission, but there was also Bob & Doug on Demo-2.)
Out of those 13 missions, I believe only 1 person has flown twice, and he’s not from NASA. He’s Mr Fedyaev.
This mission is the first where all four crew members are using the new SpaceX suit design. (Some details were given by the SpaceX guy at a NASA Crew 12 press conference earlier this year.) So presumably Fedyaev is the only person to have won both types of suit in space. Perhaps he’s giving SpaceX some comparative feedback.
