US and Russia sign agreement for code-sharing flights to space

you America And this Russia This Friday, the 15th, an agreement was signed that will unite the two countries towards the International Space Station and allow astronauts and astronauts to travel on the same spacecraft.

In a statement, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said the agreement with NASA “is in the interests of both countries and will promote the development of cooperation within the scope of the station program, as well as facilitate space exploration for peaceful purposes. .”

+ NASA unveils new images of the universe taken by the James Webb Telescope

The space station’s main partners, NASA and Roscosmos, have for years sought to revive conventional manned flights as part of their long-standing civilian alliance. It is one of the last links of cooperation between the US and Russia as tensions rise between the countries over the war in Ukraine.

According to the US space agency, the first joint flights under the new contract will launch in September with US astronaut Frank Rubio carrying two astronauts to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Moscow, Kazakhstan. .

In return, astronaut Anna Kikhina will accompany two American astronauts and a Japanese astronaut on a SpaceX flight to the orbiting laboratory launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The two agencies have already shared previous missions of an American spacecraft and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

After the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, the United States relied on Soyuz to send astronauts to the space station until 2020, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule renewed NASA’s human spaceflight capability and began regular trips to the station.

Kikhina, an engineer and the only woman in Russia’s active space force, is the first Russian woman to fly on a SpaceX spacecraft. While the contract was being negotiated, he trained for work at NASA headquarters in Houston. The US space agency said having at least one Russian and one American on the space station was critical to operating the lab.

+ China denies NASA’s claim that it will dominate the moon

“Integrated teams ensure that properly trained crew members are on the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks,” NASA said in a statement Friday.