NASA plans to buy an astronaut on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft through Texas-based airline Axiom Space, according to two people familiar with the plans. The seat is a backup for NASA if the upcoming ride with SpaceX encounters technical issues, and it suggests the agency is proceeding cautiously.
The agency announced Tuesday that it is considering options to purchase a Soyuz seat as a safety net to keep the International Space Station manned by U.S. astronauts. This is the second time NASA has acquired a Russian seat from a US company, following an agreement with Boeing in 2017 for five Soyuz seats. This time it’s the agreement with Axiom – a start that arranges private space rides to space.
According to the two people who spoke, the terms of the agreement for the astronaut seat are still being negotiated. The edge under the condition of anonymity because the conversations are private.
The space agency relied on Russia to offer rides to the space station when the US shuttle program retired in 2011. NASA began its commercial crewing program after Russia raised the prices of its Soyuz seats to $ 90 million – without which Russia would have been the only option. Last year, SpaceX launched its first crew of American astronauts into space under the program.
A spokesman for Axiom declined to comment.
“A US company reached out to NASA with a proposal that could meet NASA’s needs,” Josh Finch, spokesman for the agency, in a statement to The edge. “However, we cannot share the name of the company as NASA has not entered into an agreement on the seat and that the information is sensitive to acquisition.”
NASA has been talking to Russian space agency Roscosmos for months about swapping Crew Dragon or Boeing Starliner seats for additional seats on Soyuz spacecraft, rather than buying those seats with cash. NASA expects to fly Russian astronauts with U.S. astronauts from the fall of 2021, Finch said. The astronaut on the Axiom-mediated Soyuz seat would fly between the spring and fall of this year, he said.
In 2020, NASA bought a Soyuz seat for Russia for Kate $ 90 million for Kate Rubins – and agreed to send Russian cargo to the station for two years, an ‘in-kind’ deal that could be worth millions more. Now NASA wants a seat on the MS-18 mission on April 10, which has already booked three Russian astronauts to fly. The agreement with Axiom will probably involve one of the Russians starting from MS-18 to make way for an American astronaut.
It was unclear how much NASA was considering paying Axiom for the single Soyuz seat or what savings Axiom would get from the deal. The purchase of Soyuz seats from a US company happened only once before, in 2017. Then NASA bought from Boeing, which acquired the rights to five seats in an unrelated settlement with the Russian Energia. Boeing sold the seats to NASA for a total of $ 374 million, the agency said at the time.