The Executive Director of Roscosmos for manned Space Programs called the launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft with cosmonaut Anna Kikina a new stage of cooperationKENNEDY SPACE CENTER /USA/, October 6.
/tass/. The agreement on cross-flights between the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Roscosmos allows specialists of the two countries to develop cooperation in maintaining their presence on the International Space Station (ISS). This was stated on Wednesday to journalists at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (Florida) by the executive director of Roscosmos for manned space programs Sergey Krikalev.
"We have started a new stage," Krikalev said, commenting on the launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, in whose crew Anna Kikina was the first Russian cosmonaut to go to the ISS as part of the cross-flight program between NASA and Roscosmos. "There was such a proposal - quite logical. It was, by the way, from the American side, and we supported it because [it] made technical sense," he said.
According to Krikalev, the agreement on cross-flights "really increases the reliability of the system, increases the resistance to various failures." "If there is any problem with the launch of the ship, with the docking of the ship, the segment of our partner will not be left without a specialist in this segment," he stressed.
Krikalev noted that the situation before the launch of Crew Dragon on October 5 could in practice confirm the need for cross-flights. "Due to Hurricane ["Ian"], the flight was postponed. If it had been moved more, if there had been any major damage, then the flight could have been delayed. And then, indeed, the American segment before the arrival of the next crew, with the normal return of the previous one, could be left without an American specialist," he noted.
The Executive Director of Roscosmos for Manned Space Programs stressed that cross-flights are not the only example of bilateral cooperation between the countries. "There are our specialists in the American Mission Control Center, there are American specialists in our Mission Control Center. And this group is just designed to support its MCC," he stressed.
Krikalev recalled that in 2005, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the staff of the Mission Control Center in Houston (Texas) was evacuated. "The support group of American specialists, who were sitting in the Moscow MCC, took over the responsibilities of managing the American segment. That is, we are hedging ourselves both at the level of ground services, and at the level of specialists who are engaged in training, and at the level of astronauts, now we are also making cross-links that allow us to increase the stability of the system," he said.
Initially, the launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft was scheduled for October 3, but NASA specialists postponed it twice due to Hurricane Ian. Together with Kikina, NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata went to the ISS.
Docking with the ISS is planned in automatic mode at 16:57 on October 6, US East Coast time (23:57 Moscow time). The duration of the crew's stay on the ISS is planned to be 145 days.
On July 15, Roscosmos announced the signing of an agreement on joint cross-flights of Russian and American cosmonauts to the ISS. The commander of the Roscosmos cosmonaut detachment Oleg Kononenko reported that this agreement implies three flights of Russian cosmonauts on the American Crew Dragon ship. As part of the program of cross-flights, on September 21, American astronaut Frank Rubio went to the ISS aboard the Russian spacecraft K. E. Tsiolkovsky (Soyuz MS-22) from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
