The SpaceX Crew-6 mission is now scheduled for takeoff on March 2 after two previous launches were canceled this week. Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will join United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg on the mission to the ISS for a duration of six months.
"It's a great example of our continued partnership with our international partners and also making a new space for our commercial partners," Costello said.
Costello also said he is pleased that the rotation with Roscosmos continues, underscoring some of the important work the two space agencies including partnering on crucial scientific research.
"We… do some collaborative research and those get worked out in protocols between Russia and the United States as to how they participate," Costello said. "We've always been interested in sharing data where we can: on human research and the effects of spaceflight on the human body."
NASA and Roscosmos, he added, are collaborating on a number of initiatives such as the Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction (SoFIE) project.
According to NASA, the SoFIE project studies flammability of certain solid spacecraft materials in real atmospheric conditions to improve fire safety for future long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
With respect to US long-term projects, he said NASA is testing all needed technologies on the ISS for missions to the Moon and Mars.
"Well, I think certainly with a target date now of 2030 on the ISS side, everybody is getting more focused on making sure that we're testing technologies that are on the roadmaps for exploration for both the Moon and Mars. And we're trying to identify the uses of the ISS that are most important to prove out those technologies," Costello told Sputnik.
Costello said he hopes that all technologies will be lined up and those which can be tested in lower Earth orbit will be tested on the ISS.
According to Costello, the tests differ based on surface destinations and whether the microgravity of the ISS or the high radiation environment outside the ISS is needed.
Fedyaev will be the second Russian cosmonaut to board the US Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the ISS integrated flights agreement. In October, the spacecraft carrying the Crew-5 mission team, including Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, successfully docked on the ISS.
The launch initially scheduled to take off on February 26, then it was moved to February 27 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the ISS. Two minutes before the start, however, the take-off was called off because of technical issues. The launch time is set for 12:34 a.m. EST (5:34 a.m. GMT) on Thursday.