MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos is considering NASA’s request to reschedule the launch of a manned Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday.
NASA applied to Roscosmos on Thursday with a request to reschedule the flight of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft for late July and extend the space expedition to the orbital outpost from December to February 2020. NASA motivated its request by considerable delays with the trials of the US Crew Dragon spacecraft.
"We are considering NASA’s request. We will make a decision taking into account the opinion of ballistics experts from the Energia Space Rocket Corporation. So far, it [the launch of the Soyuz MS-13] is scheduled for July 6," Rogozin said on Twitter.
A source in the Russian space industry earlier told TASS that the launch of the Crew Dragon spaceship with crewmembers on its board planned for July might be rescheduled for late November 2019 due to critical remarks on its qualifications.
Meanwhile, NASA Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration William Gerstenmaier told journalists that astronaut Andrew Morgan who is due to travel to the ISS on July 4 together with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will stay in orbit longer than planned.
The Crew Dragon made by the US SpaceX was launched for the first time to the orbital outpost with a spacesuit-clad dummy on March 2 and it docked to the space station on March 3. After its descent by a parachute, the spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.