NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Chris Birch will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, with JAXA astronaut Makoto Suwa and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan as mission specialists, according to an announcement from NASA.
The crew will join the space station's Expedition 75/76 after docking. The mission is the 14th commercial crew rotation with SpaceX under NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program.
The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations aimed at preparing humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, as well as benefiting people on Earth.
Barron will be making her second flight to the space station. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017, she holds degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Cambridge. A commander in the U.S. Navy, Barron earned her submarine warfare officer qualification and deployed three times aboard the USS Maine. She previously launched to the station in 2021 on the Crew-3 mission, spending 177 days in space across Expeditions 66/67, completing two spacewalks and serving as lead robotics operator for another. She has also supported development of new technologies and operational concepts for NASA's Artemis program.
Birch, selected in 2021, holds degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics from the University of Arizona, and a doctorate in biological engineering from MIT. She has taught bioengineering at UC Riverside and scientific writing at Caltech. She is also a decorated track cyclist who competed on the U.S. National Team and was named to the Olympic team.
The crew was photographed during preflight training at SpaceX's facility in Hawthorne, California.