NASA: Russia and the United States will conduct cross-flights to the ISS in the fall of 2022
Russia and the United States will conduct cross-flights to the International Space Station (ISS) in the fall of 2022. RIA Novosti writes about this with reference to the statement of the NASA ISS program coordinator Joel Montalbano during a press conference dedicated to sending the Dragon cargo spacecraft to the ISS.
"Our plan [to launch an astronaut] as part of Crew-5 in the fall of 2022. We plan to send a Russian cosmonaut on the Dragon spacecraft and an American astronaut on the Soyuz," Montalbano said.
According to him, the countries have concluded an intergovernmental agreement, and NASA is waiting for its approval from the Russian government.
"We discussed the intergovernmental agreement necessary for this, which should be concluded by our State Department and Russian ministries. The preliminary agreement has already been passed by the State Department and is now on the Russian side," the NASA coordinator said.
He also noted that Russian cosmonauts have already started training in the United States for flights on the American Crew Dragon ship.
Earlier, Roscosmos revealed the rest schedule of Russian cosmonauts on the ISS during the New Year holidays. Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov will rest on the ISS for only two days: January 1-2, and from January 3 they will start working and preparing for a spacewalk.
