By RICHARD TRIBOU Orlando Sentinel/TNS
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NASA announced the four members for the planned August SpaceX mission to rotate crew on the International Space Station and it includes the first member of the U.S. Space Force flying to orbit.

The crew member, which Space Force calls a guardian, has already been to space, but for NASA as a member of the Air Force.

Piloting the SpaceX Crew-9 flight will be U.S. Space Force Col. Nick Hague, who previously had a scary initial ride the Air Force technically considered having reached space in 2018 that ended with an abort. It happened as he and a Russian crewmate cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin aboard a Soyuz capsule blasted away from a malfunctioning booster after launch from Kazakhstan.

“It went from normal to something was wrong pretty quick,” he said after the abort. “We weren’t going to make it to orbit that day, so the mission changed to getting back down on the ground as safely as we could.”

The quartet will spend about six months on board the station as part of Expeditions 71 and 72 to be relieved by either a SpaceX or possibly Boeing Starliner mission in early 2025.