Ivan Vagner

Vagner was assigned to back up to Russian Flight Engineer Andrei Babkin onboard Soyuz MS-16, scheduled to launch in April 2020. However, in February 2020 Babkin and spacecraft commander Nikolai Tikhonov were removed from the flight due to a temporary health condition with Tikhonov, subsequently Vagner and Anatoli Ivanishin (Tikhonov's backup) were moved forward onto the prime crew.

He, alongside Ivanishin and NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy launched, successfully arriving in orbit and docking with the ISS six hours later on 9 April 2020, officially joining the Expedition 62 crew alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan, following a very short hand over period, Skripochka, Meir and Morgan departed the station aboard Soyuz MS-15 leaving Vagner and his two crew mates on board the station as Expedition 63, with Cassidy taking command.[3]

Expedition 62, following the arrival of Soyuz MS-16.

During Expedition 63, Vagner and his two crewmates were scheduled to be on board the ISS for the arrival of a number of visiting crewed vehicles. The Expedition 63 crew welcomed the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission for a stay on board the station on 31 May 2020.[4] This flight marked the first crewed test flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and the first crewed orbital spacecraft to launch from US soil since STS-135, the final flight of the Space Shuttle program, in 2011.[5] The mission was crewed by NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken, who remained on board the ISS for two months.[6] Expedition 63 was joined by Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov as well as NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins, who launched aboard Soyuz MS-17 on 14 October 2020. Second flight. Vagner trains on the backup Soyuz MS-25 commander.