Iran Press/ Europe: The deal allows Russian cosmonauts to fly on American-made spacecraft in exchange for American astronauts being able to travel on the Russia’s Soyuz, the agencies said on Friday.
“The agreement is in the interest of Russia and the United States and will promote the development of cooperation within the framework of the ISS program,” Roscosmos said in a statement, adding that it will facilitate peaceful exploration of outer space.
NASA and Roscosmos, the lead partners on the two-decade-old space station, have sought for years to renew routine integrated manned flights as part of the agencies’ longstanding civil alliance, now one of the last cooperative ties between the United States and Russia when war tensions erupted in Ukraine.
The first integrated flights under the new agreement will come in September, NASA said, with US astronaut Frank Rubio launching to the space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, leased by Moscow, along with two cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin. .
In exchange, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will join two American astronauts and a Japanese astronaut on a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to the orbiting laboratory, which will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The two agencies had previously shared astronaut seats on the US shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
After the shuttle’s retirement in 2011, the US relied on Russia’s Soyuz to send American astronauts to the space station until 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule revived NASA’s manned spaceflight capability and began flights. ISS routine from Florida.
Kikina, an engineer and the only woman in Russia’s active cosmonaut corps, will be the first Russian to fly SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. She has been training for the mission at NASA Astronaut Headquarters in Houston while the deal was being negotiated.
The US space agency has said that having at least one Russian and one American aboard the space station is crucial to keeping the lab running.
“Integrated flight crews ensure that properly trained crew members are on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks,” NASA said in a statement Friday.
Shortly before the deal was announced, President Vladimir Putin replaced Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin with Yuri Borisov, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Defense Minister.
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