Spaceflight Now by Stephen Clark October 7, 2019
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley may spend more time on the International Space Station than originally planned when they ride SpaceX’s new human-rated Dragon spacecraft into orbit on its first crewed test flight, a space agency official said Friday.
A decision to extend the duration of the Crew Dragon test flight with Behnken and Hurley, designated Demo-2, is one of several options under consideration to ensure the space station remains staffed with U.S. astronauts after NASA’s agreement to procure seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft expires next year.
In an interview with CNN last week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency is also looking at purchasing more Soyuz seats from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
The final round-trip Soyuz seat procured by NASA will launch in March 2020 on the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft, a mission also designated Soyuz 62S in the space station’s sequence of visiting vehicles. The crew member flying in that seat has not been announced, but a U.S. astronaut and a Japanese astronaut have been training to potentially fly on a Soyuz mission in early 2020.
More:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/10/07/nasa-may-ask-spacex-to-extend-duration-of-crew-dragon-test-flight/
