As a child, Joshua Kutryk dreamed of becoming an astronaut, even though he never thought the goal was actually within reach.
Now, the Fort Saskatchewan-born astronaut is preparing to travel to the International Space Station, a moment he says “feels really magical.”
“It’s a lot of excitement,” Kutryk said in an interview with CTV Your Morning on Tuesday. “I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time, a lifetime, training for it for about five years.”
Kutryk is set to launch in September as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission, alongside U.S. astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
The mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than Sept. 12 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, with the crew travelling to the station inside a Crew Dragon capsule.
Kutryk is expected to spend about six months aboard the International Space Station.
For Kutryk, the journey is the culmination of a childhood fascination.
“As a kid, I was fascinated with exploring, wanted to be an astronaut, (but I) didn’t think it would be possible,” he said. “I always viewed it as, sort of just this, almost unattainable goal, but it was still really good for me to have that goal. It definitely had a huge impact on my life, still does.”
Kutryk, a colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces and a test pilot, was selected as a Canadian Space Agency astronaut in 2017. He said he has had plenty of help and “a lot of luck” along the way.
“It’s awesome. It’s exciting and … it’s even more so to be doing it as a Canadian,” he said.
Once aboard the space station, Kutryk said he will have two broad responsibilities: keeping the complex machinery operating and conducting scientific research.
“The space station is probably the most complicated thing humanity has ever built,” he said. “My job is to keep it running and maintain it, fix things, operate it, control it … very technical work that we as a crew have been training for years now.”
Although he is not a scientist by training, Kutryk said the crew carries out research designed by researchers from around the world, including many Canadian projects planned during his mission.
“It’s a very unique floating laboratory basically, where we can do science that we can’t do on Earth,” he said.
For Kutryk, the mission also represents another chapter in Canada’s long involvement in space exploration.
“A lot of Canadian pride,” he said. “It’s pretty neat that Canada’s on this and that we’re still there doing what we’ve always done so well, which is live right there in the forefront of space flight.”
