Astronauts will continue flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft at least until spring of 2020, before they can switch to US-made spacecraft, a source from the space industry told Sputnik.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Astronauts will continue flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft at least until spring of 2020, before they can switch to US-made spacecraft, a source from the space industry told Sputnik.
In late August, Russia Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said that Russia's contractual obligation to transport US astronauts to the ISS would expire in April 2019.
"Foreign astronauts will continue flights on Russia's Soyuz-MS spacecraft most probably until spring of 2020," the source said.
According to the source, this follows from the schedule of both the already approved crews of the Soyuz spacecraft, and plans for the first manned flights of private US spacecraft Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner. The first crews, according to the approved schedule, will be able to fly to the ISS in April and mid-2019.
Now the international crews are approved until the spring of 2020, the source added.
In August, US Vice President Mike Pence said that the United States would soon get rid of its dependency on Russian spacecraft and promised that US astronauts "will return to space on American rockets; launched from American soil."
According to Pence, each seat on board a Russian capsule costs about $82 million.
A space industry source told Sputnik in May that the United States intended to order the manufacturer of Soyuz to deliver its astronauts to the ISS in 2020 due to a delay in production of US-made commercial spacecraft.
