Long-Duration ISS Tenants Selected for 2024 Launch

The 8th rotational mission to the ISS has been announced, with Commander Matthew Dominick, Pilot Michael Barratt, and Mission Specialist Jeanette Epps chosen to accompany cosmonaut Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin for the mission in "early 2024."

The team will join Expedition 70 and 71 crew members aboard the station for a long stay, carrying out the usual chores and errands involved in keeping the ISS operational along with a wide-ranging set of operational and research activities. Commander Dominick will be overseeing his first spaceflight after becoming space-qualified in 2017. The USN Test Pilot School alumnus once served as a guinea pig evaluating catapults on next-gen carrier launch systems. His post-military career led him right into NASA, helped along by degrees in electrical and systems engineering.

Specialist Epps will also be a first-timer on the mission, having spent time with the CIA and Ford Motor Company. She was selected as an astronaut in 2009, and began working on the Generic Joint Operation Panel working on space station crew efficiency. She's been sidelined from launches before, having been given a slot on the infamous Boeing Starliner-1 mission before that program gave way to more...reliable launch systems. Her history as a crew support astronaut for 2 expeditions, and as lead capsule communicator in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will give her a solid base of experience from both ground and flight ops throughout the Crew-8 stay.

Teh most seasoned of the crew will be Pilot Michael Barratt, undergoing his 3rd trip to the ISS. Previously, in 2009, he served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 19 and 20. With 2 spacewalks under his belt, and 212 days of space livin' in his logbook, Barratt can be the old salt on the crew. His pre-space life saw him serving as a NASA flight surgeon and project physician, before joining the astronaut corps in 2000.

Lastly, Roscosmos cosmonaut Grebenkin will be the 4th on the team, tagging along on his own very first space mission. NASA is fairly terse about his resume, but Grebenkin holds a position in Roscosmos as a Test Cosmonaut, holding a degree from Irkutsk Military Aviation Engineering Institute in Transportation Radioelectronics, with an additional engineering degree in broadcasting, radio, and television systems. A resume in the military at home has provided him an apparent wealth of experience in maintaining high-uptime comms systems from 2002 to 2020. 

FMI: www.nasa.gov