Roscosmos has confirmed that cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will take the place of Oleg Artemyev in the Crew-12 mission crew. The reason for the changes is that Artemyev has decided to move to a new job.
Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev is included in the main crew of the Crew-12 mission instead of Oleg Artemyev. This decision was made in connection with Oleg Artemyev's transfer to another job.
Fedyaev is a Hero of the Russian Federation. He was born on February 26, 1981, in Serov, Sverdlovsk region, studied at the Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute. In 2014, by decision of the Interdepartmental Qualification Commission, he was awarded the qualification "test cosmonaut." After that, he underwent training in a specialization group under the International Space Station (ISS) program.
Fedyaev made his first flight on Crew Dragon on March 2, 2023, as a mission specialist on Crew-6 and a flight engineer on ISS-69. In the same year, he was awarded the Yuri Gagarin Medal.
Crew Dragon is a reusable manned spacecraft developed by SpaceX under contract from NASA. It is needed to deliver crews to the ISS and return to Earth. As of December 2025, two Crew Dragons are docked to the ISS simultaneously. NASA uses Crew Dragon as part of the Commercial Crew Program for regular crew rotations on the ISS.
There is a cross-flight program between Roscosmos and NASA — an agreement that allows cosmonauts and astronauts from different sides to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on each other's ships. The agreement ensures a continuous presence of crews on the station in conditions of a limited number of available manned spacecraft for each side.
