Roscosmos to help NASA to deliver its astronauts to ISS

Head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin gave instructions to allocate funds for making two additional Soyuz MS manned spaceships, including due to the need to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

"I gave a command to Roscosmos yesterday to allocate extra funds to make two more [Soyuz] spaceships. The production capacities of our factory [the Energia Space Rocket Corporation] allow producing four spaceships a year but it is possible to produce five spacecraft. There are such possibilities and we will make use of them. Apart from our plans under the federal space program, we are now placing extra orders for two new spaceships," TASS cited the Roscosmos chief as saying.

He said that Russia will build one spacecraft for a flight by space tourists in 2021 while the other Soyuz will be needed to deliver expeditions to the ISS.

Roscosmos will help NASA with the delivery of astronauts to the orbital outpost and for this purpose it will make Russian crews more compact, Rogozin added.