Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and the US' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are negotiating the prospects of the mutual provision of seats in both countries' spacecraft for flights to the International Space Station (ISS), the Roscosmos representative in Kazakhstan, Anatoly Krasnikov, said on Tuesday
ALMATY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2020) Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and the US' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are negotiating the prospects of the mutual provision of seats in both countries' spacecraft for flights to the International Space Station (ISS), the Roscosmos representative in Kazakhstan, Anatoly Krasnikov, said on Tuesday.
On Sunday, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, which was launched from the Florida space center on a Falcon 9 rocket, successfully docked with the ISS. The shuttle was the first US space capsule to do so with a crew since 2011, when NASA retired its shuttle fleet, resorting to flying astronauts to space aboard Russian spacecraft. The Dragon capsule and the Falcon 9 carrier rocket were constructed by private US rocket company SpaceX. Roscosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko told Sputnik following the launch that Russian cosmonauts may one day fly to the ISS on US-made spacecraft.
"There are currently negotiations underway between Roscosmos State Corporation and NASA on the mutual provision of seats for flights to the ISS ... so that Russian cosmonauts will fly on US spacecraft and US astronauts will continue flying on our spacecraft," Krasnikov said at a press conference on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at the Sputnik Kazakhstan press center.
The official added that Roscosmos was sincerely happy for their American colleagues over their successful launch and docking of the Crew Dragon capsule.
"We congratulate them wholeheartedly, this is really a great success for them," Krasnikov said.
Earlier this year, the head of Russia's Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center, Pavel Vlasov, told Sputnik that a group of Russian cosmonauts, including Andrei Borisenko, was selected for flights to the ISS on new US manned ships.
