Russia's Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia may increase annual production of manned Soyuz spacecraft from four to five to meet the demands of space tourists in the future, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told reporters Thursday
KHIMKI (Moscow region) (Pakistan Point news / Sputnik - 21st March, 2019) Russia's Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia may increase annual production of manned Soyuz spacecraft from four to five to meet the demands of space tourists in the future, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told reporters Thursday."We produce four spacecraft a year. Physically, RSC Energia is capable of producing up to five ships annually," Rogozin said.
He was commenting on LDPR party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky's proposal to send a lawmaker to space.
A spokesman for US-based company Space Adventures told Sputnik in February that the company had signed a contract with Roscosmos to organize a flight of two space tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) before the end of 2021.
According to Roscosmos, the Russian corporation and Space Adventure have been cooperating in the field of space tourism since 2001, when the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, got his trip to orbit. A total of seven people have been in space under the space tourism program since then.
In November, RSC Energia said it was considering the resumption of space tourism in 2019-2020. The company stressed that this practice had been suspended because of the need to transport foreign astronauts to the ISS following the closure of the US space shuttle flight program in 2011. However, the United States is planning to send its crews to the ISS by domestically produced spacecraft, and thus, it will be possible to use the seats in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that will become free for space tourists.
