NASA extends contract with Russia for rides to Space Station

NASA has inked a $490 million contract with Russia to keep sending American astronauts to the global Space Station aboard Russian-built space vehicles.

The U.S. space agency’s chief Charles Bolden said he was forced to extend the contract because of budget cuts that delayed efforts to revive a U.S. human flight program.

The extension of contract with Russian Federation entails US taxpayers to allot $80 million per seat on a Soyuz spacecraft – something that occurred in the midst of Washington’s action of increasing the measures against Russian Federation due to its activities in Ukraine.

“This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and worldwide partner crews to the global Space Station”.

Since the U.S. ended its space shuttle program in 2011, Russia’s Soyuz rockets are the only means of ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS.

“In 2010, I presented to Congress a plan to partner with American industry to return launches to the United States by 2015 if provided the requested level of funding”, Bolden said, in a letter sent to Congress Wednesday.

Last September, NASA granted a $6.8 billion contract for Space X and Boeing to develop the Dragon capsule and the CST-100 space capsule.

Congress has cut about $1 billion from President Barack Obama’s request for a Commercial Crew, in the past five years, pushing NASA’s launch date to 2017.

Also on Wednesday, Orbital ATK, one of two companies that fly cargo to the space station under a separate NASA program, said a pair of Russian engines for its refurbished Antares rocket had arrived in the United States. In June, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying crucial supplies of food, fuel, water and spare parts exploded shortly after launch from Cape Canaveral.

But those achievements won’t be possible without adequate funding, according to Bolden.

“Reductions from the FY 2016 request for Commercial Crew proposed in the House and Senate FY 2016 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bills would result in Nasa’s inability to fund several planned CCtCap milestones in FY 2016 and would likely result in funds running out for both contractors during the spring/summer of FY 2016”, Bolden stated.