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Cross space flights to be continued, if experience is positive — Roscosmos

Sergey Krikalev stressed that the cross-flights agreement had been signed with the aim to increase the space programs’ resilience to potential contingencies

MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. The experience of cross-flights (by Russian cosmonauts on US spacecraft and US astronauts on Russia’s Soyuz vehicles) to the ISS can be extended, if the results of the first three ones are positive, the executive director of Roscosmos for crewed space programs, Sergey Krikalev, told a TASS news conference on Friday.

"If the experience is positive, then we will go ahead with it," he said.

Krikalev stressed that the cross-flights agreement had been signed with the aim to increase the space programs’ resilience to potential contingencies. In particular, he said that without cross-flights any hypothetical postponement of a launch of a Russian or US spacecraft might lead to the absence of either country’s representative on the ISS.

"In order to guarantee the presence of at least one of our partners in the national segment, we made such a decision (on cross-flights - TASS). Should such a situation occur, then at least one crew-member from the partner country will be present in the national segment," Krikalev added.

On July 15, Roscosmos announced the signing of an agreement on joint cross-flights by Russian cosmonauts and US astronauts to the ISS. Russians will take a seat on US spacecraft thrice. The launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft of the Crew-5 mission, on which Anna Kikina will go to the ISS, is due on October 3. The crew will also include NASA’s astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA’s astronaut Koichi Wakata. Russia’s cosmonaut Andrey Fedyayev will fly on the sixth spacecraft of the mission. His standby is Konstantin Borisov, who will also undergo training for a flight as part of the Crew-7 mission in 2024.

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