WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States announced on Friday (July 15) that it would resume flights to the International Space Station with Russia, despite its attempts to isolate Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.
“To ensure the continued safe operations of the International Space Station, to protect the lives of astronauts, and to ensure the continued presence of the United States in space, NASA will resume the crews embedded on spacecraft from the American crew and the Russian Soyuz,” US space agency NASA said in a statement.
NASA said astronaut Frank Rubio would fly with two Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz rocket scheduled for launch September 21 from Kazakhstan, with another astronaut, Loral O’Hara, who would fly another mission in early 2023. .
In a first, Russian cosmonauts will join NASA astronauts on SpaceX’s new Crew-5 which will launch in September from Florida with a Japanese astronaut also on the mission.
Another joint mission on SpaceX Crew-6 will launch in early 2023, NASA said.
The move comes despite the European Space Agency this week ending ties with Russia over a mission to send a rover to Mars, infuriating Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin who banned ISS cosmonauts to use a European-made robotic arm.
But hours before NASA’s announcement, President Vladimir Putin fired Rogozin, an incendiary nationalist and ardent supporter of invading Ukraine who once joked that American astronauts should go to the station. space on trampolines rather than on Russian rockets.
NASA said the International Space Station was always designed to be operated jointly with the participation of space agencies from the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.
“The station was designed to be interdependent and relies on the contributions of each space agency to operate. No agency has the capability to operate independently of the others,” he said.
NEW WAYS TO TAKE OFF
Soyuz rockets were the only way to reach the space station until SpaceX, led by billionaire Elon Musk, launched a capsule in 2020.
The last NASA astronaut to take a Soyuz to the station was NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei in 2021.
He returned to Earth in March this year alongside Russian cosmonauts, also on a Soyuz.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Vande Hei said the cosmonauts remained his “very dear friends” despite the strained relations between their nations.
“We supported each other through everything,” he said. “And I never had any concerns about my ability to continue working with them.”
The United States imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, defying Western warnings.
The sanctions, which include tough restrictions on financial interactions, have led to an exodus of major US brands from Russia, including Starbucks and McDonald’s.
But the International Space Station is unique. It was launched in 1998 at a time of hope for US-Russian cooperation after their Space Race competition during the Cold War.
The ISS is expected to shut down within the next decade.
Rogozin, the outgoing head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, had warned that Western sanctions could affect cooperation.
“If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling onto American or European territory?” Rogozin wrote in a tweet earlier this year – noting that the station does not fly over much of Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say his withdrawal meant Putin was unhappy with Rogozin.
Independent media said he would be promoted and could be in charge of the occupied territories in Ukraine.