(Wikimedia Commons/SpaceX https://bit.ly/3ATsEfm)
Collaboration is paramount in space exploration, whether we like it or not.
That’s why NASA and Roscosmos have signed an ISS cross-flight agreement that will launch mixed crews of Russian and American astronauts on their spacecraft.
The first two flights under this new agreement will take cosmonaut Anna Kikina in the Crew Dragon, and astronaut Francisco Rubio on the Soyuz.
The US and Russia have vast experience in joint space flights.
The first mission took place in 1994, when Sergey Krikalev flew into orbit on the Discovery shuttle.
Then, in 1995, Norman Thagard went to the Mir station on the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft.
The cross-flights helped to develop the cooperation and increased the reliability of the ISS and Mir programs.
In case of problems with the ship of one country, the astronauts could fly to the station on the other’s ship.
After NASA ended the Space Shuttle program in 2011, the American astronauts flew to the ISS on the Soyuz spacecraft until NASA got the SpaceX-designed Crew Dragon.
After that first SpaceX flight, there was only one joint flight, and then the Soyuz flew only with a Russian cosmonauts.
Until recently, NASA paid for the flights of its astronauts on the Russian spacecraft.
The new agreement between NASA and Roscosmos does not imply payment for the flights, but the exchange of seats on the spacecrafts.
Now, the agencies have announced at least a couple of cross flights, and the first two will take place this fall.
In the first, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina will become a crew member of the Crew-5 mission along with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata.
This is the first flight by a Russian cosmonaut on a spacecraft from the US since the days of the shuttle program.
This is also the first flight by Kikina, who is now the only woman in the Russian cosmonaut corps.
Roscosmos hasn't published the exact date of the flight, but it is expected to take place in September of this year.
The second one will have NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio delivered to the ISS in a Soyuz MS-22 together with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin.
The next pair of flights will take place in 2023: Loral O'Hara will take part in the Soyuz MS-23 mission, and Andrey Fedyaev will go to the ISS as part of the Crew-6 mission.
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