The crew is replacing another Soyuz crew, including NASA's Frank Rubio, that is wrapping up a record 371-day stay in space.
Also on hand to welcome O'Hara and company: SpaceX Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. They were launched to the station onO'Hara, making her first space flight, plans to spend six months aboard the outpost while Kononenko and Chub, like the Soyuz crew they are replacing, plan to log another yearlong stay, returning to Earth in September 2024.
In the near term, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will spend about 12 days or so packing up and familiarizing their three replacements with the intricacies of space station operations. "As we prepare to push back to the moon and then onward on to, hopefully, Mars and farther in the solar system, I think it's really important that we learn just how the human body learns to adapt, and how we can optimize that process, so that we can improve our performance as we explore farther and farther out from Earth."
"But at the same time, we felt some incredible love and support and just the prayers from our family, our friends, our community. Honestly, seeing the support that my family was getting made it so much easier to be up here and focus on the mission. It just took that weight off my shoulders."
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