Moscow. November 5th. INTERFAX - European astronauts can start flying into space again on Russian ships after the conclusion of an agreement on cross-flights between Roscosmos and NASA, the official representative of the European Space Agency Rene Pichel told Interfax.
"Since we have agreements with NASA so far, for us everything depends on how NASA and Roscosmos have agreed," he said, answering the question whether European flights on Soyuz will resume after the conclusion of the relevant agreement.
In August 2019, the head of the ESA Permanent Mission in Russia, Rene Pichel, said that the agency was suspending the flights of its astronauts on Russian Soyuz.
The head of the agency, Jan Werner, explained this by the specifics of the agreement between ESA and NASA.
"We have an agreement with NASA: we supply them with equipment, and for this they provide us with places according to their quota. We cannot determine on which ships our astronauts will fly to the ISS. In the past, these were shuttles, now "Unions". Now NASA is preparing to start using ships developed by SpaceX and Boeing," Werner told Interfax.
He also said that the agency will hold talks with Roscosmos on concluding a direct bilateral agreement on the flights of European astronauts on Russian spacecraft.
Later, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, after a meeting with Werner at the MAKS-2019 air show, announced the preparation of such an agreement.
In June of that year, the executive director of Roscosmos for manned programs, Sergey Krikalev, told Interfax that it had not yet been possible to reach a direct agreement.
On October 29, the head of NASA's manned program, Kathy Luders, announced that Roscosmos and NASA are considering the possibility of joint training for future "cross" flights to the ISS.
On October 6, the head of NASA's ISS program, Joel Montalbano, announced that the United States was preparing an agreement with Roscosmos on "cross-over" flights, a Russian cosmonaut could fly on an American ship in the fall of 2022.
The Roscosmos annual report for 2020 reported on the preparation of a draft agreement with NASA on cross-flights.
In April, the executive director of Roscosmos for manned programs, Sergey Krikalev, told Interfax that the state corporation supports the resumption of "cross" flights to the ISS on Russian and American ships.
According to him, this "requires a certain confirmation of the governments both here and the Congress on the American side."
Since 2011, the delivery of crews to the ISS was carried out only by Russian ships, before that there was a cross-system, according to which American astronauts received seats on Russian ships, and Russian cosmonauts - on American ones. In 2020, NASA reported that they were negotiating with Roscosmos on the return of the crossover system.
