NASA and its International Space Station (ISS) partners will meet in December to try to find a solution to the project's cash crisis and the reduction of its crew to a minimum of three.
The move comes as NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe plays down reports from Russia of a crisis in the country's ISS commitments.
NASA's ISS partners are not confident of a positive outcome from their meeting in December, however, and the European Space Agency has indicated that it may be forced to reduce its ISS budget by 60%, while Japan has already delayed its experiment module to 2007.
ESA is getting increasingly worried about the future of the ISS. ESA director general Antonio Rodota says that the ISS has got to have a six- or seven-person crew to achieve its potential and enable NASA to meet its international agreements.
O'Keefe says the Russian Space Agency has assured him that the country will meet its commitments of supplying Progress and Soyuz spacecraft to support ISS operations. He adds that Russia's financial crisis is something "they're going to have to work through". Yuri Koptev, the Russian agency chief, concedes that there are domestic funding problems and says he hopes the ISS "will not suffer a sorry fate".
Source: Flight International
