As planned, Anna Kikina will become the first cosmonaut in the crew of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Her place in the crew of the Soyuz MS-22 will be taken by US astronaut Francisco Rubio
Moscow. July 15th. INTERFAX - Roscosmos and NASA have signed an agreement on joint cross-flights of Russian and American cosmonauts to the ISS.
"On Thursday, July 14, 2022, the Roscosmos State Corporation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed an agreement regarding the flights of integrated crews on Russian and American manned transport ships," the Russian state corporation reported on Friday in its telegram channel.
According to Roscosmos, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will join the crew of the American Crew Dragon spacecraft in the Crew-5 mission, as previously planned in the case of signing the agreement. Her place in the crew of the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will be taken by NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio.
"The agreement is aimed at ensuring that in the event of an emergency situation related to the cancellation or significant delay of the launch of a Russian or American spacecraft, at least one Roscosmos cosmonaut and one NASA astronaut are present on board the ISS to service the Russian and American segments, respectively," the state corporation noted.
On July 14, NASA Deputy program director Dana Weigl announced that the United States and Russia are close to signing an agreement on cross-flights to the ISS.
On July 6, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that an agreement on cross-flights to the ISS between the Russian Federation and the United States would be signed in the near future.
In June, the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center Maxim Kharlamov said that the final version of the agreement is currently being negotiated in the United States, the Russian side expects to receive an agreed version in the near future.
Earlier, Kharlamov informed that cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev would become Anna Kikina's understudy as part of the crew of the American Crew Dragon spacecraft if the agreement was signed.
On June 25, Roscosmos reported that Kikina was preparing to fly to the United States to undergo a week-long training at SpaceX. The launch of the Crew Dragon ship with Crew 5 crew is scheduled for the fall of this year.
On June 11, Rogozin announced that the state corporation was waiting for NASA to nominate astronauts for inclusion in the Soyuz MS-22 crew as part of cross-flights, and Kikina would join the American crew from the Russian side.
On June 10, it became known that the Russian government approved negotiations on signing an agreement between Roscosmos and NASA on cross-flights on Russian and American manned transport vehicles to the International Space Station. The fate of the agreement remained unclear due to the aggravation of Russian-American relations against the background of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
On December 27, 2021, Rogozin, in an interview with The New York Times, said that the Russian Federation and the United States plan to carry out one joint flight per year from 2022 to 2024 as part of the cross-flight program.
