U.S., Russian Space Officials Set Plans To Pan Out Station Soyuz Agreement

摘要

U.S. and Russian negotiators are scheduled to meet in Houston in November to start hammering out an agreement that would allow NASA astronauts to continue flying to and from the international space station on Russian-built space capsules. With the U.S. space shuttle fleet grounded since the February 2003 loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the Russian Soyuz-TMA capsule currently is the only means of ferrying astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the space station. NASA expects space shuttle flights to resume by mid-2005, eliminating the U.S. space agency's reliance on Russia for routine crew transfer flights. However, NASA would still like to send astronauts on the Soyuz from time to time and the three-person capsule would continue to play a vital role for years to come as the space station's only emergency escape spacecraft.