Moscow. January 13. INTERFAX-AVN - The draft agreement between Roscosmos and NASA on the resumption of cross-flights to the ISS is being approved by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin said.
"A draft agreement on cross-flights of integrated crews to the ISS has been prepared and agreed with NASA (it is being approved by the Russian Foreign Ministry)," says the presentation presented by Rogozin at a meeting dedicated to the results of the work of the state corporation for 2021.
Roscosmos and NASA plan to carry out at least one joint flight per year from 2022 to 2024 as part of the "cross-flight" program, the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with The New York Times in December.
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.
On November 17, 2020, the executive director of Roscosmos for manned programs, Sergey Krikalev, told Interfax that Roscosmos 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 December 17.
On the same day, Maxim Kharlamov, head of the Cosmonaut Training Center (CPC), told Interfax that the CPC had selected four candidates to prepare for flights on the American Crew Dragon ship.
On December 20, NASA's ISS program manager Joel Montalbano announced that Russian cosmonauts are already being trained to fly on the Crew Dragon spacecraft in the United States.
On December 8, Rogozin announced that Anna Kikina, the only woman in the Roscosmos cosmonaut squad, could become the first Russian cosmonaut to fly to the ISS on the American Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of cross-flights.
On December 27, Kikina said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel (VGTRK) that she had completed the first stage of training in the United States as part of the "cross-flight" program, training will resume in 2022.
