NASA and Roscosmos have signed the agreement that will allow the two agencies to "swap places" in the four missions on the International Space Station.
Seat swapping allows for greater safety in the event that one of the available vehicles is no longer able to fly for an extended period of time.
As expected, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will fly the Soyuz MS-22 mission, scheduled to launch on September 21 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, while NASA's Loral O'Hara will fly the Soyuz MS-23 mission next. spring.
At the same time, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly on SpaceX's Crew-5 mission in September and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will join astronauts from Crew-6 in spring 2023.
Cosmonauts and astronauts will train in NASA / Roscosmos facilities.
Although unintentional, the announcement came shortly after Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin was replaced by former Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov.