Europe plans EPIC SpaceX mission to send 4 astronauts to the ISS before its retirement

The European Space Agency is planning to buy a dedicated SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to send its astronauts to the International Space Station to boost their time and experience in space.

European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher announced the plan to charter a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on March 19, following a decision at an ESA Council meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland. The ESA Provided Institutional Crew (EPIC) project is planned to launch in early 2028 with the aim of providing more opportunities for the agency's astronauts to get to space before the International Space Station is retired, SpaceNews reported.

"We have five career astronauts that I intend to fly in the next few years, and EPIC is one way of making sure that these career astronauts can go to the space station, do research and certainly also enlarge our experience and our work on the International Space Station," Aschbacher said in the March 19 ESA press briefing.

The move would create new opportunities for Europe's astronauts before the International Space Station (ISS) is retired. As European Spaceflight reported, ESA unveiled its latest group of five career astronauts in November 2022, but has only secured long-duration flights to the ISS for two of the five, including Sophie Adenot, who is currently aboard the space station as part of SpaceX's Crew-12 mission.

The mission will likely include international astronauts, not just those from ESA, however.

"ESA will buy launch capability for four professional astronauts," Aschbacher said. "We plan to implement this with international partners. That means ESA astronauts plus international partners." He added that ESA will work closely with NASA, but ESA will lead and fully operate the mission.

Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA's Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, stated that EPIC would not be similar to recent, short-term private missions to the ISS. The selected EPIC crew will be career astronauts who will spend around one month in orbit. They will conduct research and utilization activities aboard the ISS, but they will also participate in maintenance and repair and support logistics operations. Private astronauts typically focus on research activities and the missions have lasted around two weeks on average.

The ISS is currently scheduled to be deorbited in 2030, by which time it will have been permanently occupied for 30 years. However, a number of U.S. senators are calling for the lifetime of the ISS to be extended two years to September 2032, aiming to avoid a gap in continuous U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit and thus "avoiding ceding leadership to China before commercial stations are ready."