International Space Station crew to downsize in early 2017

Enlarge / Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, a veteran flier shown here after a 2010 mission to the space station, will be Russia's only flier next March. (credit: NASA)

The International Space Station has usually been home to six astronauts since May 29, 2009, when Roman Romanenko, Frank de Winne, and Bob Thirsk arrived on the station, expanding the crew to its full complement for the first time. But that will change in March, as Russia scales back its involvement in the partnership by flying two fewer cosmonauts to the station per year.

NASA announced Tuesday that a March launch of its Expedition 51/52 to the station will contain just two crew members, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency, instead of the more typical three. They will join the crew of Peggy Whitson, Thomas Pesquet, and Oleg Novitskiy aboard the station to make for a semi-permanent crew complement of five.

Russia has scaled back its crew complement to save expenses, as sending fewer of its Progress supply ships to the orbiting laboratory will help Roscosmos close a budgetary hole. Roscosmos has said the reduced crew complement will be "temporary" but has not said when it might resume full staffing. For this year, rookie cosmonauts Nikolai Tikhonov and Ivan Vagner appear to have been pulled from their flights in favor of veterans.