MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos keeps to its plans of work on the International Space Station (ISS) at least until 2024, including preparations for seat swap flights with the United States, Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday.

"We will work as normal at least until 2024 on all our plans. They have not changed. Seat swap flights add confidence to the station’s safety: we understand the technology of running a US spaceship and the Americans know the technology of running our spacecraft," the Roscosmos chief said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.

This area of cooperation is useful, the Roscosmos chief emphasized.

"Why give up something that is useful? Anna Kikina [Russian woman cosmonaut] flew to Houston (USA) to familiarize herself with the design of the modules of the ISS American segment and the Crew Dragon spacecraft whose crew she may join. On our part, we are not ruining anything and keep to preliminary accords, although we continue waiting for the government’s decision on the program of cross flights," Rogozin explained.

Last year, the Roscosmos chief told reporters that cosmonaut Kikina might be the first to fly aboard a US Crew Dragon spacecraft under the program of seat swap flights in 2022. For her part, Kikina said that she was pleasantly surprised by this decision. Rogozin specified in an interview with The New York Times that Roscosmos planned to conduct a seat swap flight a year jointly with NASA in 2022-2024.

The Roscosmos chief said earlier this year that the United States should not ruin space cooperation with Russia as this might lead to the premature curtailing of joint work on the ISS and other dramatic consequences.