Moscow expects NASA to start taking astronauts to the International Space Station again and hopes cooperation can resume next year, the head of the Russian space agency was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Russia has been the only country that has been able to deliver people to the ISS since 2011, when the US space agency retired its spacecraft and turned resources toward deep space exploration. But the US agency last month resumed flights to the ISS with its new Crew Dragon spacecraft, on which Moscow hopes Washington will find berths for the astronauts.
According to an interview published by Interfax, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that he and his American counterparts had discussed the issue, as well as expanding Russia’s involvement in space station maintenance beyond 2025. .
Tension between Washington and Moscow has spilled over into space, but Rogozin said the two agencies planned to finalize the Crew Dragon deal in the first half of 2022 when NASA chief Bill Nelson visited Moscow. ,
Earlier this month Rogozin mentioned Roscosmos’ only female cosmonaut Anna Kikina as a possible nominee for such a flight.
In November, US officials accused Russia of endangering the ISS after creating a debris field in low-Earth orbit that they said would threaten space activities for years. In early December, Roscosmos said that the ISS had conducted a maneuver to temporarily move away from a fragment of the American launch vehicle.
,