MOSCOW, July 14. /TASS/. New US manned spacecraft are a larger and a glamorous version of Russia’s Soyuz, Head of Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said.
"American spacecraft, either SpaceX or Boeing, are spacecraft just for low orbits. These are analogues of our Soyuz. Yes, they are larger and more glamorous," Rogozin told Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.
According to Roscosmos chief, US spacecraft are similar by technical characteristics to Soyuz MS, which is called "a grandfather" in Russia’s space field. "An old horse won’t spoil the furrows," he said.
NASA stopped crewed flights in 2011 after the Space Shuttle program came to an end. Since then all astronauts were delivered to the International Space Station and back by Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.
The Crew Dragon was successfully launched atop a Falcon 9 carrier rocket from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 30.
Besides SpaceX, Boeing corporation also developed its spacecraft, CST-100 Starliner, which was launched on December 20, 2019 atop Atlas V carrier rocket from Cape Canaveral. The docking with the ISS was scheduled for December 22, but a software error occurred during the flight and the spacecraft was sent back to the Earth.