MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/: Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin gave instructions to allocate funds for making two additional Soyuz MS manned spaceships, including due to the need to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
"I gave a command to Roscosmos yesterday to allocate extra funds to make two more [Soyuz] spaceships. The production capacities of our factory [the Energia Space Rocket Corporation] allow producing four spaceships a year but it is possible to produce five spacecraft. There are such possibilities and we will make use of them. Apart from our plans under the federal space program, we are now placing extra orders for two new spaceships," the Roscosmos chief said.
Russia will build one spacecraft for a flight by space tourists in 2021 while the other Soyuz will be needed to deliver expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS), Rogozin said.
Roscosmos will help NASA with the delivery of astronauts to the orbital outpost and for this purpose it will make Russian crews more compact, Rogozin said.
The Roscosmos press office earlier told TASS that candidates for space tourists to travel aboard a Soyuz spacecraft under a contract signed between the Russian space agency and the US Space Adventures had not yet been selected. A manned Soyuz spacecraft will be ready for this purpose in the second half of 2021. Therefore, the flight will take place no sooner than the end of 2021. Also, space tourists will be able to get acquainted with the spacecraft during their training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Roscosmos specified.
Manned space flights
NASA halted its crewed flights in 2011 after completing its Space Shuttle program. Since then, US astronauts have been travelling to the International Space Station aboard Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft. The contract between Roscosmos and NASA expires in late 2019. Currently, several US companies are developing new spaceships for NASA’s crewed flights.
Boeing is developing a CST-100 Starliner spacecraft expected to be orbited by an Atlas V rocket.
Starliner’s rival, the Crew Dragon derived from the space freighter Dragon, already delivers cargoes to the ISS. The spacecraft has been developed by SpaceX owned by US entrepreneur and investor Elon Musk and has similar features. The spacecraft is expected to be orbited by Falcon-9 launch vehicles produced by SpaceX.
The start of US spaceships’ crewed flights has been numerously delayed.
