The war in Ukraine may be ongoing with the US imposing harsh sanctions on Russia, including on space programs, but the NASA announced that it had signed an agreement with the Russian space agency Roskosmosso that they make joint flights to International Space Station.
According to Reuters, Russian cosmonauts will fly to the space station (ISS) on American spacecraft in exchange for Americans being able to travel on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
“The agreement is in the interests of Russia and the United States and will promote the development of cooperation within the framework of the ISS program,” Roskosmos said in a statement, adding that the agreement would facilitate “exploration of space for peaceful purposes ».
NASA and Roskosmos, who have collaborated for two decades on the International Space Station, have sought for years to renew routine crewed flights as part of a long-standing partnership between the two agencies, which is currently one of the last links between the of the United States and Russia as tensions flare over the war in Ukraine.
The first full flights under the new agreement will take place in September, NASA announced, with American astronaut Frank Rubio flying to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan along with two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin.
In return, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will join two American astronauts and a Japanese astronaut on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft flight to the ISS; which will be launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The two agencies have previously shared astronaut seats on the US space shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
After retiring the shuttle in 2011, the US relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to send American astronauts to the space station until 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule revived NASA’s manned spaceflight capability and began routine flights to the ISS from Florida.
Kikina, who is an engineer and the only woman in Russia’s active cosmonaut corps, will be the first Russian woman to fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. He trained for the mission at NASA’s astronaut headquarters in Houston while the deal was being negotiated.
Source: News Beast
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