NASA partners with Russia again on ISS flights

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Despite the war in Ukraine, the American space agency NASA wants to resume cooperation with Russia on flights to the International Space Station. For security reasons and to ensure “the US presence in space”, joint flights of NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts in Russian “Soyuz” capsules will resume from September.

Russian astronauts should therefore, for the first time, use the SpaceX rockets flying on behalf of the US. A corresponding agreement on carrying Russian and American astronauts in the other country’s rockets had already been signed on Thursday, the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced on Telegram on Friday.

“The agreement is in the interest of Russia and the United States,” Moscow said. In this way it can be guaranteed that in the event of a delayed or canceled rocket launch, there will always be at least one Roskosmos and one NASA member on the ISS. Astronaut Francisco Rubion and cosmonaut Anna Kikina will be the first astronauts to launch “cruise flights” from each other’s countries in September.

US astronauts had already flown into space until 2020 on Russian “Soyuz” rockets from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After that, manned ISS flights departed from American soil. NASA relies on the space transporter “Crew Dragon” from the private company SpaceX. The Russian cosmonauts, on the other hand, recently took off with their own rockets only to reach the human outpost at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.

Putin fires head of space agency
In view of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it has been a mystery lately how Russian-American cooperation in space would continue. Notably, the previous head of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, repeatedly appeared as a hardliner loyal to the Kremlin. On Friday, the 58-year-old was replaced by former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borissow.

It is not yet known how Rogozin’s career will continue. Media reports say he could either hold a leadership position in the presidential government or manage one of the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow recognizes as independent.

Source: Krone

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