WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th July, 2023) A US astronaut will still be flying on a Russian manned Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in September as planned and cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos, the US and Russian national space agencies, is continuing unchanged, NASA ISS Program Manager Joel Montelbano said.
"(A) NASA astronaut will be flying in the Soyuz mission," Montelbano told reporters on Tuesday. "To me, it is exciting to continue the integrated crew work (between US and Russian astronauts and cosmonauts) that we started about a year or so ago."
Montelbano emphasized that concerns about technical or wider political issues had not impacted the continued cooperation between the space agencies on supplying and jointly operating the ISS.
"Our cooperation with Roscosmos hasn't changed at all. ...In Houston, we continue to have Russian colleagues in the Mission Control Center working side by side with our US specialists. Again, nothing has changed. We are ready to go and there are no major changes in our cooperation," he said.
Montelbano said he and NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox visited Moscow less than two weeks ago and held talks on continued cooperation with their colleagues in Roscosmos.
