Washington. November 7th. INTERFAX - The cross-flights of American astronauts on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Russians on SpaceX Dragon ships to the International Space Station (ISS) will solve the problem with the possible absence of US representatives on the station, Joel Montalbano, head of NASA's ISS program, said during a teleconference.
During the press conference, Montalbano noted that due to the fact that the crew of the Crew Dragon-2 mission will leave the ISS before the Crew Dragon-3 replacing it arrives, only one NASA representative will remain to work in the American segment - Mark Vande Hai, who arrived at the station in April on the Russian Soyuz.
In order to avoid a situation in which there may be no astronauts left on the station to work on the American segment of the ISS, NASA will seek an agreement on cross-flights, within which astronauts capable of replacing them will arrive.
"We are trying to find spare options, for example, in which our astronauts would fly on the Soyuz, and Russian cosmonauts would fly on our ships. For this launch (Crew Dragon-3 missions to the ISS - "IF") we did not plan a backup crew. (...) In the future, we plan to fly on each other's ships, so we will solve this problem," said Montalbano.
On Saturday, November 6, Vladimir Dubinin, deputy head of the Cosmonaut Training Center (CPC) for Science and Development, told Interfax that Roscosmos and NASA have compiled a preliminary list of Russian cosmonauts who will be trained on the Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of future "cross" flights to the ISS.
According to him, the process of training Americans to fly on the Soyuz spacecraft has already been worked out, NASA astronauts have the skills to control a Russian ship.
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, Montalbano said that the United States is preparing an agreement with Roscosmos on "cross" flights, a Russian cosmonaut can 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." "The bureaucratic work continues, we believe that this is the right scheme," he added.
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.
