Moscow. November 29. INTERFAX - The possibility of docking the American Crew Dragon spacecraft with the Russian Berth module has not yet been discussed with Roscosmos, the docking interfaces are currently incompatible, said Dan Weigl, deputy head of the ISS program at NASA.
"We have not had discussions specifically on this, the interfaces of the docking of our ships are different (...) at the moment, the interfaces are incompatible," Weigl said at a briefing before the American astronauts went into outer space.
On November 26, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that at the moment the state corporation and NASA are discussing the issue of docking the American Crew Dragon ship with the Russian Berth module.
"At the moment, NASA and Roscosmos have begun negotiations on the harmonization of technical standards that will allow this kind of docking," Rogozin told reporters on Friday.
According to him, docking will be possible if a docking interface is created.
On November 26, the new Berth node module docked to the Nauka module on the ISS.
The new module is designed to increase the technical and operational capabilities of the Russian segment of the ISS. As reported in Roscosmos, further development of the segment will be provided by docking transport systems to the module.
As reported in the rocket and space corporation Energia, the first ship will dock to the module on March 18, 2022. This will be the Soyuz MS-21 manned spacecraft, the crew of which will include cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov.
On November 17, the executive director of Roscosmos for manned programs, Sergey Krikalev, told Interfax that the state corporation and NASA had reached an agreement in principle on the resumption of "cross-over" flights, the text of the agreement is being coordinated in the government of the Russian Federation.
"There is a fundamental agreement. There are not even so much technical as documentary problems. Since this is a barter scheme, coordination is underway at the government level: documents are being prepared, words are being clarified, a normal working process is underway," Krikalev said.
On November 17, the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, Maxim Kharlamov, told Interfax that the CPC had selected four candidates to prepare for flights on the American Crew Dragon ship. According to him, the candidates should be submitted to the state Commission for approval in the near future.
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, the Russian cosmonaut, according to him, could fly on an American ship in the fall of 2022.
On October 29, the head of the NASA manned program, Kathy Luders, stated that Roscosmos and NASA are considering the possibility of joint training for future "cross" flights to the ISS.
