WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th September, 2020) The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Russia's Federal Space Agency Roskosmos have already agreed that they want to have their cosmonauts and astronauts riding on each other's rockets, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Tuesday.
"We are working towards that on our two agencies," Bridenstine told a press conference. "There is broad agreement that it is the end state we need to achieve and, I think, we will get there."
NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Director Kathy Lueders said top officials at both the US and Russian space agencies strongly favored establishing a set schedule to confirm their continued and extended cooperation on future manned missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
"We are in the process of coordinating an agreement to work towards that: The sooner, the better. It is very important for us that we are both working towards that," Lueders said.
Bridenstine and Lueders were speaking at a press conference discussing the next DragonX manned mission to the ISS, scheduled for October 31.
The mission is planned to confirm the restoration of the United States' ability to send astronauts into space on US-built human-rated boosters for the first time since the end of the Space Shuttle missions in 2011.
