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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday February 20 2020, @12:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the broken-dreams dept.

Russia replaces two cosmonauts on next space station crew for 'medical reasons':

Two Russian cosmonauts have been removed from the next scheduled launch to the International Space Station "for medical reasons," according to the Russian space agency.

In a statement posted to its website on Wednesday (Feb. 19), Roscosmos said that Nikolai Tikhonov and Andrei Babkin will no longer fly to the space station in April, and will instead be replaced by backup crew members.

"The positions of the commander and flight engineer of the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft will now be taken by Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner," the agency said [In Russian]. "The changes will affect only the Russian part of the crew."

A NASA spokesperson confirmed that U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy will continue to prepare for the mission, which will now see him, Ivanishin and Vagner serve as the Expedition 63 crew on board the space station.

Roscosmos provided few details about the medical concerns that led to the crew change. The agency's director of human spaceflight, former cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, said in a news briefing that the issue involved one of the two replaced crew members.

"Due to personal data, we will not disclose it yet," said Krikalev, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russian media reports, citing unnamed sources, said that it was Tikhonov who had suffered an injury. Roscosmos appeared to support that by confirming that Babkin, along with cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov, had been reassigned as the new Soyuz MS-16 backup crew members.

Ivanishin, Vagner and Cassidy are scheduled to launch on April 9 atop a Soyuz-2.1a booster from Site 31 at Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will be the first spaceflight for Vagner and the third for both Ivanishin and Cassidy.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:06PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:06PM (#960293)

    I came here to post and say the same thing.

    I am getting really sick of these quotes in the media, specifically when they are used to add a tone of disbelief or incredulousness about something that doesn't merit the overt display of bias.

    If there's some reason to disbelieve why Russia is managing their staffing of the crew, then great, outline that.

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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:35PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday February 20 2020, @03:35PM (#960306)

    Ditto. Like, do people really expect them to go into detail what the medical problem was? We actually have laws against that over here in the USA.

    Unless they have the tiniest shred of evidence the Russians are lying about it, they can fuck right off.

    --
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  • (Score: 2, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 20 2020, @06:30PM (6 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday February 20 2020, @06:30PM (#960386) Journal

    Perhaps those quotes indicate that it was some sort of quotation and were not intended to scare you?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @11:42PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2020, @11:42PM (#960498)

      It means "that is what they said the reason was".

      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 21 2020, @04:24PM

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:24PM (#960700) Journal

        And unless you have fair reason to question it the quotes are unnecessary. If you have fair reason to question it then you state your reasoning after using the quotes. It's up to me, as the reader, to figure out what should have had scare quotes unless the author is going to justify their use.

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    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 21 2020, @04:27PM (3 children)

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:27PM (#960705) Journal

      Then the editor needs to directly attribute who said it. (The summary title. The article attributes it correctly but missed the intro comma before the quotes.) Better sentence construction would have been: Two Russian cosmonatus have been removed from the next scheduled International Space Station launch for what the Russian Space Agency described as, "medical reasons."

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      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 21 2020, @04:29PM

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:29PM (#960706) Journal

        And better title construction would have been: Russia replaces two cosmonauts for next ISS launch for medical reasons. (No quotes necessary). Or Russia replaces two cosmonauts for next ISS launch described as, "medical reasons".

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      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 21 2020, @04:42PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:42PM (#960711) Journal

        It's attributed in the very first sentence!

        Two Russian cosmonauts have been removed from the next scheduled launch to the International Space Station "for medical reasons," according to the Russian space agency.

        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 21 2020, @04:56PM

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday February 21 2020, @04:56PM (#960719) Journal

          OK. Why are the quotes necessary at all? Why is this not equally clear and correct: Two Russian cosmonauts have been removed from the next scheduled launch to the International Space Station for medical reasons, according to the Russian space agency.

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  • (Score: 2) by Aegis on Friday February 21 2020, @12:21AM

    by Aegis (6714) on Friday February 21 2020, @12:21AM (#960510)

    God, there's no conspiracy too small!

    It's a very dry report chock full of quotes. Nobody is trying to scare anybody.