NASA’s acting administrator said on Tuesday that he did not expect Russian astronauts to start flying US commercial vehicles to the International Space Station until next year.
A proposed agreement with Russia to ensure that the space station is always manned by an international crew is awaiting the approval of the US government. The agreement, which was not exchanged for funds, has been discussed for years by NASA and Russian space agency officials, but the signing of a final agreement has hit roadblocks in recent months.
Steve Jurczyk, acting administrator of NASA, said on Tuesday that the draft version of an ‘implementation agreement’ between NASA and Roscosmos is still being reviewed by the US State Department.
“We are waiting for the final signatures from the State Department on the implementation agreement, and then we will give the draft to Roscosmos and start our negotiations,” Jurczyk said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.
He said he believed NASA was close to finalizing the State Department’s text, but the clock was probably running out to get the State Department’s signatures and finalize the agreement with the Russian government in time for a Russian awarding cosmonaut to a SpaceX crew. mission later this year.
Once the agreement is in place, a Russian cosmonaut must be approved to travel to the United States, have a custom SpaceX-developed print suit manufactured, and receive basic training in the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“I believe it’s now too late to develop a suit and do the training for Crew-3,” Jurczyk said, referring to a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission launched on October 23. “So this is probably the earliest mission to have an astronaut it would be Crew-4.”
The Crew-4 mission is currently planning to launch no earlier than the first quarter of 2022.
Last November, NASA said it had submitted the draft agreement to the State Department for approval. At that point, NASA hoped the deal could be completed in time to award a Russian astronaut to the Crew-3 mission late this year.
The latest NASA astronaut Raja Chari – a former US Air Force fighter pilot – veteran astronaut Tom Marshburn, and European astronaut Matthias Maurer have been nominated for the Crew-3 mission. NASA has left the Dragon’s fourth seat for a Russian cosmonaut, but it is now expected that the post will be filled by a crew member of NASA’s astronaut corps or another international partner.
Once NASA and Roscosmos sign the final agreement, executives want every US crew to start going to the space station to have a Russian astronaut on board. And every launch of a Russian Soyuz crew capsule would have an astronaut from the United States or another partner qualified to operate the NASA segment of the space station.
The agreement will help ensure that there is always a crew member on the space station to manage the Russian division of the outpost and the US operating segment, or USOS, which includes US, Japanese, European and Canadian hardware. If the Russian Soyuz program or the US crews are grounded, crew members from the other international partners will still be able to fly to the space station.
It will also guard against a medical emergency that could force half of the space station crew to leave the outpost early and return to Earth. If one spacecraft had to leave the station early, all the crew of the capsule had to return to Earth to ensure that they were not trapped in a orbit without a lifeboat.
This could force all Russian or all US crew members to evacuate the space station, which could jeopardize critical parts of the spacecraft’s propulsion, life support and control systems.
International astronauts are already flying on SpaceX Crew Dragon missions. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi launched the Crew-1 mission – the first regular Crew Dragon flight – in November and will return to Earth next week.
The Crew-2 mission, which will be launched on Thursday, will include Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and French-born mission specialist Thomas Pesquet, the first crew member of the European Space Agency to fly on Dragon. They will join NASA Commander Shane Kimbrough and pilot Megan McArthur on the space station for six months.
NASA relied on Soyuz spacecraft for all crew transportation to and from the station from the spacecraft’s exit in 2011 to the launch of astronauts SpaceX launched last year.
NASA has paid the Russian government about $ 4 billion since 2006 to buy Soyuz seats for astronauts from the United States and the station’s other international partners, according to a 2019 report by NASA’s Inspector General.
The Russian space contractors doubled with the NASA money and the production of Soyuz crew capsules for the launch began to double in 2009 to meet the demand for space transportation to the space station. After NASA’s previous bulk purchase of Soyuz seats expired in 2017, Russian officials reduced the Soyuz flight rate to two flights last year.
The final Soyuz seat purchased by NASA from Russia was filled by astronaut Kate Rubins, who launched a Soyuz spacecraft last October and landed in Kazakhstan with two Russian crew members on Saturday.
NASA arranged for another Soyuz seat to be arranged at the most recent launch of the Russian crew on April 9, but did not pay cash for the ride. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei embarked on the mission after NASA booked the seat with the help of Axiom Space, a company in Houston that mediates flights for space tourists and plans its own private space station.
In exchange for paying for Vande Hei’s ride, Axiom will be given space for one of its private customers on a future US crew mission from NASA.
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