NASA explained that the ISS was always manufactured to be operated jointly with participation from space agencies from the US, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.
The United States announced on Friday that it would resume flights to the International Space Station with Russia, despite its attempts to separate Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.
“To ensure continued safe operations of the International Space Station, conserve the lives of astronauts and ensure continuous the US’s existence in space, NASA will resume integrated crews on US crew spacecraft and the Russian Soyuz,” space agency NASA declared in a statement.
NASA declared that astronaut Frank Rubio is going to fly with two Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz rocket planned to launch on September 21st from Kazakhstan, with another astronaut, Loral O’Hara.
First, Russian cosmonauts are supposed to join NASA astronauts on SpaceX’s new Crew-5, which will be launched in September from Florida with a Japanese astronaut also on the mission.
“Another joint mission on the SpaceX Crew-6 will fly out in early 2023,” NASA said.
“The station was designed to be interdependent and relies on contributions from each space agency to function. No one agency has the capability to function independent of the others,” it explained.
