SPACEX CREW 3 MISSION.
                     SPACEX CREW 3 
MISSION
INTRODUCTION
• For a possible SpaceX commercial crew mission to 
the International Space Station, NASA has chosen 
three astronauts because it leaves open the 
prospect of sharing seats with Russia
Source: www.tesmanian.com
SpaceX Crew-3 mission 
• NASA and the European Space Agency jointly 
announced on Dec. 14 that they had allocated the 
SpaceX Crew-3 mission to NASA astronauts Raja 
Chari and Tom Marshburn and ESA astronaut 
Matthias Maurer. 
• It is expected to begin this commercial crew 
mission in the fall of 2021.
Source: spacenews.com
Indian-American Raja Chari To Be on SpaceX’s 
Crew-3 Mission
• Chari, who will serve as the mission commander, 
joined the astronaut corps and will be making his 
first spaceflight. 
• He is also part of NASA's announced Dec. 9 
'Artemis Squad' of astronauts who are trained for 
future Artemis lunar missions. 
Source: nripulse.com
Who else are part of the mission?
• A NASA astronaut since 2004, Marshburn flew in 
2009 on the STS-127 shuttle flight and spent 
almost five months on the ISS in 2012 and 2013. 
• Maurer will make his first spaceflight, joining the 
ESA astronaut corps in 2015.
Source: spacenews.com
One Spot Left
• For this mission, the agencies have not announced 
who will hold the fourth seat on the Crew Dragon 
spacecraft. 
• Subsequent to a review by NASA and its 
international partners, a fourth crew member will 
be added at a later date.
Source: spacenews.com
Crew 1 & Crew 2 Mission
• NASA, ESA and Japanese space agency JAXA 
astronauts have been assigned to commercial crew 
flights so far. 
• The Crew-1 mission currently on the ISS involves 
three NASA astronauts and one JAXA astronaut, 
while two NASA astronauts and one each from ESA 
and JAXA are scheduled to begin the Crew-2 
mission in the spring of 2021. 
Source: space.com
Mixed Crews
• NASA, in return for enabling NASA astronauts to fly 
on Soyuz spacecraft, has expressed its confidence 
in what it terms 'mixed crews,' flying Russian 
cosmonauts on commercial crew vehicles. 
• Such trades, will guarantee that at least one NASA 
and one Roscosmos astronaut are on the ISS if any 
Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are out of 
operation for a period of time.
Source: Twitter
Implementation Agreement
• Discussions are underway to prepare for mixed 
crews. Joel Montalbano, NASA ISS programme 
manager, said that they are looking to fly on each 
other's vehicles, possibly later in 2021. 
• The first step to do so, he said, is a implementation 
agreement from government to government that 
was being prepared at the time of the briefing. 
Source: reddit.com
Crew-3's launch
• Crew-3's launch will coincide with Crew-2, just as 
Crew-2 will overlap with Crew-1, said NASA. 
• That suggests that the first Boeing CST-100 
Starliner commercial crew vehicle operating 
mission, dubbed the Starliner-1, is likely to be 
postponed until at least the spring of 2022. 
• In August, NASA revealed that it had chosen 
astronaut Jeanette Epps, joining Sunita Williams 
and Josh Cassada, who were assigned to the flight 
in 2018, for that mission.
Source: spacenews.com
Future Missions
• NASA said at the time of the announcement that 
Starliner-1 would be launched by the end of 2021, 
but did not have a more reliable timeline. 
• The agency confirmed that a second uncrewed 
spacecraft test mission, Orbital Flight Test 2, was 
planned for March 29. 
• That will be followed in the summer of 2021, by a 
crewed test flight with three NASA astronauts on 
board.
Source: nasa.com