SpaceX has decided to remove Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev due to national security concerns, after he photographed the rocket engines.

SpaceX has announced that it has excluded Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev from a future mission to the International Space Station for national security reasons. Artemyev, at the age of 54, has been involved in three previous missions to the ISS and has spent a total of 560 days in space. According to the report, he allegedly photographed SpaceX rocket engines and classified documentation. The Russian space agency Roscosmos stated that the decision was made due to Artemyev's transfer to another workplace, without providing further details. Andrei Fedyayev has been appointed as a replacement for the Crew-12 mission, scheduled to launch on February 15. Additionally, Russia has recently lost the ability to launch people into space, after a launch pad suffered significant damage, marking the first time since 1961 that it cannot launch a crewed rocket.