NASA astronaut Nick Hague, who was forced to abort his recent mission to the International Space Station, is scheduled to launch again Feb. 28, 2019, from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Hague will launch with Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, who was his commander and crewmate on the aborted mission in October, and NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch aboard the Russian Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft. The trio will join the stations Expedition 59 crew and return to Earth in October 2019 as members of Expedition 60. Hague and Koch will serve as flight engineers for Expeditions 59 and 60. Ovchinin will serve as a flight engineer on Expedition 59 and the commander of Expedition 60.
Hague will be available for media interviews at 7 a.m. EST Friday, Dec. 7. To schedule an interview, media must contact Megan Sumner at [email protected] or 281-483-5111 by noon Thursday, Dec. 4.
All three crew members will participate in a news conference at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12, at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. The news conference will air live on NASA TV and the agencys website. To participate in person, media must contact Johnsons newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m. on Dec. 11 for credentials. To participate by phone, media must contact Johnsons newsroom by 1:45 p.m. Dec. 12.
During their mission, the station crew will take part in about 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth to advance scientific knowledge of Earth, space, physical, and biological sciences. Science conducted on the space station continues to yield benefits for humanity and will enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration on missions to the Moon and Mars. The crew also is scheduled to be onboard during the first test flights of NASAs Commercial Crew Program, which will return human spaceflight launches to U.S. soil.
This will be Kochs first spaceflight. Hague and Ovchinin were scheduled to join the stations Expedition 57 crew on Oct. 11, but were forced to abort their mission when their Soyuzs rocket booster experienced a malfunction shortly after launch. Flight dynamics specialists determined Hague and Ovchinin achieved enough altitude on their aborted climb to orbit to qualify for previous spaceflight status, making this Hagues second spaceflight and Ovchinins third.
Hague is a native of Hoxie, Kansas, and a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Prior to his selection as an astronaut in 2013, he was part of the Air Force Fellows Program in Washington, where he worked as an adviser to the U.S. Senate on matters of national defense and foreign policy. He earned a bachelors degree in astronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a masters degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Koch, who grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, earned bachelors degrees in electrical engineering and physics and a masters degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Her career includes experience as an electrical engineer focusing on space science instrument design at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Lab, in Laurel, Maryland. She also worked as a research associate with the United States Antarctic Program, completing several deployments, including spending the winter at the South Pole. Her work at remote scientific research stations went on to include sessions as a field engineer in the Arctic and as station chief with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in American Samoa. She was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013.
See video of Hagues launch, abort, and landing, as well as interviews and family welcome at:
