NASA announces crew for 2024 ISS rotation mission

Aug. 4 (UPI) -- NASA Friday announced four crew members that will fly on NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission for a long-term stay on the International Space Station.

The crew includes NASA astronauts Commander Matthew Dominick, Pilot Michael Barrat, and Mission Specialist Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin.

They will all join Expedition 70 and 71 crew members aboard the ISS in early 2024.

"The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit," NASA said.

In the 22 years that humans have inhabited the ISS, 244 people from 19 countries have been onboard and worked in the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted over 3,000 research and education investigations.

The upcoming mission will be the eighth space station rotational mission. NASA works with the American aerospace industry to provide transportation to and from the station using American-made rockets and spacecraft.

The 2024 mission will be the first spaceflight for Commander Dominick of Wheat Ridge, Colo., who has been an astronaut since 2017.

For Pilot Barratt, it will be the third trip to the ISS. He became an astronaut in 2000 after nine years as a NASA flight surgeon and project physician.

Mission Specialist Epps will be traveling to the ISS for the first time. She's from Syracuse, N.Y., and before NASA worked for Ford Motor Company and the Central Intelligence Agency. She became an astronaut in 2009.

Grebenkin is flying his first space mission. He graduated from Moscow Technical University with a degree in radio communications, broadcasting and television.