Crew-9 Crew News Conference

The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission discussed their upcoming expedition to the International Space Station and answered questions from media during a crew news conference July 26. Crew-9 is made up of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, and Stephanie Wilson as well as Alexander Gorbunov of Roscosmos. Crew-9 is scheduled to launch in mid-August.

What is said in the film

good afternoon and welcome to NASA's Johnson Space Center for our crew n crew news conference today I am joined in Studio by our crew9 crew going down the line we have crew n Commander Zena Cardman crew nine pilot Nick ha and crew n Mission specialist Stephanie Wilson and Alexander gorinov we'll be taking questions from here in the room and on our phone bridge but before we kick it off we'll start with opening remarks from Zena go ahead thank you so much hello welcome I'm so grateful to see everyone here present in the room with us and also welcome to those tuning in online I am absolutely honored to be here with my crew mates who have been an incredible team Nick Stephanie and Alex they have shown know so much technical Excellence they are also deeply kind and incredible teammates who have been really fun to work with which has just made this a dream assignment for me we're also just a part of the Expedition 72 crew so our colleagues alexe Ivonne and Don Pettit will be launching on a soyu in September we're very thrilled to be getting to work on the International Space Station yesterday actually marked the end of a roughly 18-month training flow for us and so right now we are excited and focused as we turn towards this pre-launch phase of our mission we're very excited to be here and looking forward to your questions all right well we will start with our first question here in the room Hi Well Robinson Smith with space flight now thank you so much for taking the time to join us and talk with us today Wonder just going down the the row here obviously you know having the opportunity to go into space is a time to bring some special momentos with you wonder are what things you're looking for to taking with you and why you happen to choose those as special things thanks we have a few personal items packed of course for me one big item is photographs memories from home taking with me people who are deeply meaningful to me Family Friends those who have supported us I'm also taking things for our ground support teams the instructors who have trained us prepared us for our mission and the people who really make human space flight happen on the ground and so having a piece of them with us in orbit is is really special a great opportunity yeah one thing I'm taking different than than last time uh is is something that didn't exist last time a space force flag uh as a active duty space Force officer it's a it's a privilege to be able to represent all the Guardians that help support human space flight uh as they watch the skies and and the the cosmos that surrounds the Earth keeping us safe every day so that's one of the things I'm taking along and similarly for me it's uh important to be able to share this opportunity in the moment with family and friends and so I am also taking personal photographs of family and friends to be reminded of them and to stay connected with them and also to help me to tell the story uh of the mission uh once it's all complete and when we return home I will also be taking photographs of my family and my friends and there are also some other items which are very important for me and which represent different Milestones of my life uh for example uh the patch of our uh class that's 2018 class and also the flag of the uh high education institution that I graduated from in 2014 and next year it will be the 95th Anniversary of this institution okay we'll take another question from here in the room go ahead thank you Mark pero from Aviation weeken Space technology um my question is is looking uh forward to some of the activities you'll be doing and I'm particularly uh interested in maybe the kinds of space walks and the activities that you're prepared for uh during your months on the station we have a mission that is jam-packed full of Science of course the International Space Station is an orbiting laboratory this is one of the most important things that we do and so for me coming from a scientific background I'm actually very much looking forward to doing research that's very interdisciplinary very integrated and is at varying levels of technological Readiness some of it is very fundamental research some of it is more of a technology demonstration a lot of the science that we'll be doing is actually research on ourselves as human bodies uh the way that we respond to the space flight environment is incredibly interesting we're still looking to understand that as we move farther and farther uh Beyond low earth orbit and some of the effects that we experience things like effects on our vascular system um on our genetics um are very similar to aging populations immun compromised populations on Earth and a lot of the research that we will be doing therefore helps people on the ground yeah t touching on the um touching on you know the the spacewalk aspect and the content of some of the things we're going to be doing up there obviously there's been changes space is dynamic um and uh we're prepared to to conduct uh not just what was originally planned for us but we've been spending the last couple weeks uh coming up to speed on all those things that uh got deferred from the summer uh it's a uh it's a testament to our training team to get us ready and to be ready to respond and be flexible for all these things uh it's also fun to have our chief training officer here in the audience uh Grant has done a phenomenal job getting us ready so thank you additionally we will have uh cargo vehicles that will uh visit us on the International Space Station we'll have space X3 1 which will bring cargo to the International Space Station and uh additionally uh Dreamchaser is uh also scheduled for 2024 so we'll be working with those experiments and those uh new uh systems uh components that will arrive at the International Space Station to complete the mission objectives okay we have another question here in the room Gina go ahead uh Jina sineri ABC news for Nick okay Al uh sorry for Nick uh you talked about the US space force uh tell me the advantage you have going to the space station to expand the US space force presence and you're a guardian uh how does this all play together for you yeah you know so inside of the astronaut Corps we have uh you know several active duty military members that are assigned to work for NASA and that's a we've got a long history of that level of cooperation and so it's great to be able to to serve not only in the space force but also serve my nation as part of the astronaut Corps um expanding the you know what I think the biggest impact of me being on this Mission as a guardian is going to be is just raising awareness uh there are a lot of things that the space force does that are instrumental to making human space flight possible whether that's providing us support to launch and land or keeping us safe by by moving us out of the way or warning us of potential debris okay we'll head over to our phone Bridge now but if there are any additional questions in the room please be sure to get our attention we will start with Robert Pearlman with collect space thank you um looking at your the patches that are representing your mission the crew9 patch is colorful and full symbolism and then you look at the exposition 72 patch and it's almost the most straightforward patch since exhibition one did did your did the did your crew lead the design of both patches and how did that um how did those two come about the crew9 patch of course was designed with inputs from crew 9 this one was designed by Blake dessel who has done a lot of patches for NASA and crude flights in the past um there's a lot of symbolism in every patch so for the crew n patch we of course have a falcon this is some Synergy between crew 9 and the Falcon 9 rocket on which we will launch our destination is the International Space Station the constellation in the background is Draco as a nod to our Dragon spacecraft and the engines that will take us there uh the colors are also symbolic the red yellow white and black is actually a nod to the maritime signaling flag for the number nine uh fun fact and the purple was serendipitous but we happen to have embraced it deeply uh the Expedition 72 patch was actually led by Don pedit uh who is already in Star City on his way to the international space station in September and it really is a nod to the long-standing history of the space station which has been human occupied for more than 20 years now but you'll notice of course the space station looks quite a bit different than it did in Expedition one and I'm very grateful to be flying with people who actually helped in its construction okay we'll take our next question on the phone Bridge from Bill Harwood with CBS News uh thank thank you very much this is a question for Nick I think um how is the only guy there I know of anyway who's who's been through a a rocket anomaly how closely have you guys been able to follow the Falcon 9 N investigation and how confident are you uh in in your rocket uh any thoughts you have would be appreciated yeah I'm extremely confident in the the team the approach that they've taken the the integrated approach and which NASA has been incorporated into the response and uh am excited to to strap onto the rocket when the team decides it's time to go um yeah we've been integrated we actually were out at at SpaceX and Hawthorne training uh and it was the day after the the anomaly and and from the get-go they they brought us into the conversation and and told us everything that they knew so um it's been a spectacular response yeah I completely agree we've been so grateful for the transparency and the collaborative nature of this as we understand uh what happened and how we move forward we are really confident and we will go when the crew is ready when the rocket is ready the capsule is ready and the space station is ready for us okay we'll head back to the phone Bridge our next question is from Elizabeth Howell withs space. com thanks everyone for finding the time um I was curious if you're going to be doing anything fun for some of the sports events that happen especially in the fall and so I was thinking maybe the World Series or if you're staying that long for the Super Bowl um what do you what do you folks want to do we would love to be involved with any and all of the sports events and uh there's a wonderful public affairs team at uh at Nasa that I'm sure will uh work those events for us and and tell us the best ways that we can contribute but uh celebrating Sports and wonderful events on Earth is a nice way for us to stay connected for us to have a little bit of fun uh aboard the International Space Station so we look forward to uh participating in those sporting events uh as we're able to and as the uh PR team uh assembles that uh that plan together for us okay we'll take our next question from Sophie with Cosmic Chicago good afternoon thank you for taking my call um this question is for Stephanie um several years uh about 14 have passed since your last space flight and I noticed on your bio that you've done a lot of behindth scenes work um prior to different missions a lot of us don't get to see that work um one of the panels that you worked on was the as a representative to increased crew size generic operations panel doesn't have an acronym as long as far as I know but um can you tell me a little bit about some of the work that you've done that's informed the current situation on Space Station or what you hope to see um given that right now we have a huge number of astronauts on station thank you uh thank you for the question and uh yes as part of my work uh in between missions I participated in a panel uh as you said called the 7 crew a joint operations panel and at the time uh uh as we were building the International Space Station initially starting as a crew of three building up to a crew of six and then having a a team to look at how we would uh in a stepwise manner uh Institute and build up the systems that could support seven crew and so all of that work laid the foundation to our operations for today as we're able to have seven crew members aboard the International Space Station uh as a steady state um uh as a Ste State operation and um so excited that as part of being able to build the International Space Station now having an opportunity to return and to see it all assembled and actually to have a chance to uh visit uh some of the components that I brought up on earlier space flights but to really see that ongoing presence to see how the systems continue to operate and uh in some cases some of the science experiments also have continued or stopped for a portion and then reconed really looking forward to seeing how things are operating now and uh having a chance to experience that and tell the story okay our next question is from Douglas with payload yeah hi can you hear me yes we can hear you okay great so um my question I think it was Zena that mentioned that a lot of the science would be studying how their bodies um uh react to a longer stay in space I just wondering what the mentality is going into uh a six Monon stay on the ISS knowing that your body is going to be undergoing a lot of stress and like you said um kind of mimicking the aging process uh how do you kind of reconcile that and prepare yourself mentally uh for that aspect of the mission for me personally it's actually incredibly fulfilling it's such a privilege to fly in space and if what our bodies are experiencing can then also help us understand uh diseases and different effects uh to compromised populations on the earth this is incredibly valuable and so for me this is just a giant privilege of course we know that our bodies are going to experience changes we do so much to help mitigate and prevent those changes from exercise to support from nutritionists I think it's fascinating and I'm really looking forward to participating in research as both a scientist and a subject okay we'll take our next next question here in the room go ahead this can be for whoever wants to answer this um over the last few crew rotation missions we've seen some really interesting uh fights at the Apple if you will of how to share what you know the day in life is like on board station do any of you have anything particular either in collaboration with some folks that are currently on station or have been on station that you're kind of you know cooking up behind the scenes that you can share with us yes I think we all have different approaches to this which I absolutely love uh on board during our Expedition we will have crew members who were born in the ' 50s 60s 7s ' 80s and 90s and so we all have a really complex story to tell uh don Pettit our crewmate launching on soyu uh is an incredible photographer I'm really looking forward to not only seeing what he produces but learning from him and hoping that I can get even a tiny little bit of his expertise while we're there and Stephanie meanwhile really wants to share the story of house station has evolved since she started participating in its construction but I'll let other people uh add how they want to contribute yes I would as Zena mentioned like to uh in a way Chronicle uh the Assembly of the International Space Station and uh over uh the period highlight certain components or systems or payloads or uh window facilities that we have added to the International Space Station and try to tell the story of perhaps how that uh component blue and some initial uh information about the background and then how it's being operating today I think that that's a great way to tell the story of the International Space Station it is a wonderful orbiting laboratory that we have the honor of working uh with our colleagues our International colleagues and doing this International research and uh it's just one way that we can tell our story and uh bring everyone along with us okay we'll take another question here in the room J Ander ABC News actually for all of you um you know two of you have been to the space station before and last week we heard the plans on how station will be deorbited so is this a little Bittersweet for you guys going up to station you know there's there's a lot of time before we get to 2030 and so I'm looking forward to all the things we're going to accomplish before we get there um it is amazing what you are able to to get involved in over the course of six or seven months um it it's you just become part of this machine uh this living breathing laboratory that's up there and you feel the extension on the ground to the to the hundreds and thousands of people that are supporting you day in and day out and and then you land and you've almost forgotten everything that you did up there because you were going so fast and and chasing that red line and trying to get everything done that you could possibly do um so I'm excited to grab the Baton again and see what we can accomplish and in that same vein uh having lived through or been part of the space shuttle program and seeing that uh retire uh of course is Bittersweet uh and then continuing the International Space Station program again uh with the deorbit vehicle and having uh the potential end of the International Space Station program will also be bitter sweet but in ending programs that also means that we're able to extend our work in other programs so looking forward then to the research and the uh long duration missions deep space missions that we will conduct with our lunar missions and and our Mars missions after that so of course it does mean that we're closing the book so to speak on one phase but it enables us to do more extensive work in the next phase okay our next question is from David with about space today good afternoon I'd like just to uh talked to uh Alex about uh his impression of being possibly trained in a soil and now going to sit in a dragon Space Capsule what is it like to him I have great impressions uh from dragon and from training and anticipating the upcoming flight uh of course I had a very long training uh for so flights starting from uh my uh ascan uh program and uh right now for about a year I had uh training mostly focused on dragon and a US segment and of course there are um aspects of training that I can compare between so and dragon Miss and uh I think it's better to compare not training on so uh versus training on Dragon but more training for specific roles like for example on so flight 2 which is right seat um is similar to Mission specialist on Dragon in terms of uh time uh needed for this training and the responsibilities these two positions they're pretty similar so the main responsibilities for both Mission specialist on dragon and flight engineer to on so that uh to provide um their own safety during the flight uh whether it's a ninal flight or during ofn normal situations so this is going to be my first mission and I I hope not my last one so I still hope to have an opportunity late in the future to compare uh training and flying flying on soos and dragon okay my question would be uh going a little bit beyond that is is it like from being in a soos like a small apartment and now going to a luxury apartment in comparison I don't have a translation repeat the question can you repeat the question please true training in in a soos it's that like a a being in a small apartment and now getting into the dragon which is like a luxury apartment yes that's correct the size of the vehicles is different so uses smaller and dragon is larger but don't forget that uh so has basically two rooms uh two smaller rooms and dragon has one larger room okay our next question comes from Reed kelbach hi thank you for taking the call first of all just want to wish you all the best of luck on your upcoming Mission um I have a question for Stephanie uh we cover a area in Upstate New York near Albany and that includes your actual Alma monitor of tonic High School School uh so I was wondering if there's any message You' like to share with them and any advice you would like to give to kids from our area who may have similar aspirations to One Day end up like you yes I uh very much uh enjoyed my time growing up in western Mass and uh I miss uh that part of the country it's a beautiful uh area I miss the weather and the snow and the skiing and the change of seasons and um the wonderful Community that's there uh for for my high school tonic high school and other uh students in the area it is a small town and um when I was growing up there were about 40,000 people uh living in a town of Pittsfield Massachusetts and I'd like to say that um Big Dreams can come from small places and uh I had great support from my family from my parents uh for whom uh education was very important and so I'm very thankful that they were uh encouraging of me throughout my education and the teachers uh that I had in that Community were also very supportive and instructive and uh my message is really find your dream find what you're passionate about pursue it uh with all that you can and um even though you might come from a small place remember that Big Dreams can come from small places a great message to end on and that's all the questions we have for today thank you all for tuning in thanks to our crew for being here and answering the questions you can follow the latest on crew 9's mission to the International Space Station on nasa. gov commmercial crew and a quick note for our media Don Pettit will be available for live shots remotely from Star City Russia on August 16th and we have more information about that coming soon thanks for joining we'll be back soon

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