Moscow wants to extend the program: Russians and Americans reach the ISS

Moscow wants to extend the program
Russians and Americans reach the ISS

September 16, 2023, 12:07 am

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On Earth, after the Russian attack on Ukraine, Russia and the US are further apart than ever. The two countries continue to cooperate in space. Moscow now wants to extend cooperation in contrast to earlier plans.

Despite growing differences on Earth, Americans and Russians are working together in space. A Russian spacecraft carrying two Russian astronauts and an American cosmonaut docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:53 p.m. CET, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The flight from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe to the ISS took only three hours. American Laurel O’Hara and two Russians, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chubb, reached the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-24: although this was the first space flight for O’Hara and Chubb, Kononenko made the fifth spacewalk. .

Three crew members of Soyuz M-24 are to reinforce the crew on the ISS. NASA astronauts Jasmine Mokbeli and Frank Rubio, Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Betlin, Konstantin Borisov and Sergey Prokopjeu and Dane Andreas Mogensen and Japanese Satoshi Furukawa have long been stationed there.

Moscow wants to build its own orbital station

According to the plan, O’Hara will stay in space for about six months, Kononenko and Tsubub for about a year. Four outgoing and four cargo flights are scheduled to arrive in the open air during the journey. Astronauts will also be involved in many scientific experiments.

The ISS is one of the few international projects where the US and Russia are still working closely together. Relations have soured since Russia invaded Ukraine. Nevertheless, according to official information, Russia has now expressed its desire to extend the agreement with the United States on joint space flights to the International Space Station. An additional contract to continue cross-over flights for 2024 and 2025 is being prepared, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, reported to the Interfax news agency.

Crossover flights refer to the sending of crews into space by Russian and US space shuttles using Soyuz capsules. Astronauts and astronauts board each other’s systems. Meanwhile, Russia has announced that it will end cooperation after 2024 and build its own orbital station. However, Moscow later announced that it would consider staying on the ISS until 2028, as setting up the station would take time.