The International Space Station (ISS) flight cooperation agreement between the US and Russian space agencies allows Russian cosmonauts to travel on US-built spacecraft in return for American astronauts being able to go on Russia’s Soyuz.
The agreement with NASA “is in the interests of Russia and the US and will promote the development of cooperation within the framework of the ISS program,” Roscosmos said in a statement on Friday.
Additionally, it will make it easier to explore “outer space for peaceful purposes,” according to the Russian space agency.
NASA and Roscosmos, the space station’s core partners for the past two decades, have been working for years to renew routine integrated crewed flights as part of their longstanding civil alliance, which is now one of the last links of cooperation between the US and Russia as tensions rise over the Ukraine war.
According to NASA, US astronaut Frank Rubio will launch to the space station in September together with two cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is leased by Moscow.
In exchange, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will go to the orbiting laboratory aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, departing from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, along with two US astronauts and a Japanese astronaut.
Previously, the US Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft both featured astronaut seats that were shared by the two agencies.
Prior to 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule restored NASA’s human spaceflight capacity and started regular ISS flights from Florida, the US relied on Russia’s Soyuz to transport American astronauts to the space station after the shuttle’s retirement in 2011.
Engineer Kikina will be the first Russian to fly SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule; she is also the only female cosmonaut currently serving for Russia. While the agreement was being worked out, she was getting ready for the mission at NASA’s astronaut headquarters in Houston.
The US space agency has said that the space station can’t work without at least one Russian and one American on board.
According to a statement released by NASA on Friday, “flying integrated crews ensures there are appropriately trained crew members on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks.”
Shortly before the agreement was made public, President Vladimir Putin replaced Dmitry Rogozin as head of Roscosmos with Yuri Borisov, who had been deputy prime minister and deputy defense minister in the past.
The announcement comes as the European Space Agency confirmed that it will stop its ExoMars rover mission with partner Roscosmos, Russia’s national space corporation, indefinitely.
“On July 12, 2022, the ESA director general notified the state corporation Roscosmos in compliance with a decision by the European Space Agency (ESA) Council of member states that ESA had terminated bilateral cooperation under the ExoMars-2022 mission due to the complex geopolitical situation,” Russian Space Agency press office said in a statement.
According to Roscosmos, all equipment will be returned to the respective parties.
“Specialists of the state corporation Roscosmos and ESA are now working on the options of returning Russian equipment located on EU territory to the Russian Federation and the European equipment located on Russia’s soil to ESA,” it said.
Image Credit: Getty
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