WASHINGTON, may 1 – RIA Novosti. NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos, in the coming days to negotiate the purchase of an additional seat on the Russian spacecraft “Soyuz”, the negotiations are about price, said Friday at a briefing the head of NASA Jim Breidenstein.
“I Think we are very close to completion of negotiations, it may be completed in the coming days,” he said.
Breidenstein said that now there are negotiations about purchase of one delivery American astronaut to the ISS in October 2020.
“Our discussion with “Roskosmos” now relate to the prices, (we) have nothing more to offer right now. The last nine years, we bought the trip on the Russian Soyuz, and the price had grown considerably, now we are trying to negotiate about it,” he said, answering the question about what issues to discuss NASA and Roscosmos.
He had not information about the cost that NASA will pay for the delivery of astronauts to the ISS.
According to the head of NASA, the decision on necessity of acquisition of one more place will be taken later. “We want to see what will be the situation and then decide if we need another place for “the Union,” said Breidenstein.
NASA said that with the advent of the US has their own capabilities of manned launches, the parties will switch from paid flights to interchange places on their ships.
In December 2019, the General Director of “Rosatom” Dmitry Rogozin said the decision to provide NASA in one place on the spacecraft “Soyuz MS-17” with the start in October 2020 and “Soyuz MS-18” since launching in April 2021. This will allow the Agency to ensure that the stay at the ISS as at least one American astronaut until October 2021 for delays in the launches of the new American manned spacecraft.
In 2011, was decommissioned by the American reusable manned space transportation system Space Shuttle. After that, the crew delivered to the ISS only Russian “Soyuz”. In the United States to send astronauts to the station developed a new manned spacecraft: Crew Dragon company SpaceX, Cockpit – Boeing. The first test manned flight of the Crew Dragon to ISS is planned on may 27.
