Russia is to provide crew transport for the International Space Station (ISS) until the end of 2006, a year beyond its original agreement, averting a crisis for the station.
"I had a discussion with [NASA administrator] O'Keefe on many subjects and we reached a consensus on this issue. We have found a solution until 2006," Anatoly Perminov, Russia's Federal Space Agency (FSA) chief, told Flight International at last week's International Astronautical Congress in Vancouver.
Russia's responsibility for providing crew return was to have ended in October 2005, when its last Soyuz capsule would have returned to Earth. Without a replacement, which would have been a US vehicle under the old agreement, the ISS could not be manned. The new arrangement between NASA and the FSA will result in Russia benefiting within the existing ISS partnership agreements over workshare, but the FSA and NASA last week declined to provide more details.
US President George Bush cancelled the US crew-return vehicle programme in March 2001. However, the US 1999 Iran non-Proliferation Act prevents the US government from buying space services from the Russian Soyuz supplier and US company Spacehab has been lobbying NASA to provide crew return through its relationship with the supplier to bypass the 1999 law (Flight International, 7-13 September).
ROB COPPINGER / VANCOUVER
Source: Flight International
