The head of the American company SpaceX, Elon Musk, called it a matter of honor to deliver Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station (ISS), RIA Novosti reports, referring to the statement of the businessman and engineer made during the live broadcast of the launch of the Falcon 9 heavy rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
"It will be a matter of honor for us to transport astronauts on [Crew] Dragon," the SpaceX CEO said, without specifying a specific time frame for when the American spacecraft will be used to send Russians to the ISS.
In April, the Falcon 9 Crew Dragon launched from a pad at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida [...] to the ISS with four astronauts from the United States, France and Japan. This mission (SpaceX Crew-2) was the second regular mission for Crew Dragon. According to SpaceX, after launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully landed on the platform Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, for the 80th time, SpaceX retained the first stage of the rocket, which was used for an orbital launch.
In the same month, the acting head of NASA, Steve Yurchik, in an interview with Spaceflight Now, said that the first flight of a Russian cosmonaut on Crew Dragon to the ISS will probably take place as part of the SpaceX Crew-4 mission, that is, not earlier than the first quarter of 2022.
In March "Interfax" with reference to the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center (CPC) Pavel Vlasov said that Russian cosmonaut Sergei Korsakov in the near future may go to the ISS on Crew Dragon.
Ivan Potapov
