NASA Renews Contract With Russian Federation To Transport US Astronauts

As such, the agency is forced to extend its transportation contract with Russian Federation yet again, because it still needs the Roscosmos’ help to take American astronauts to the space station.

“Unfortunately, for five years now, the Congress… has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned”, Mr Bolden wrote.

At the moment, however, Congress is abstaining from financing the new “space taxi” program, so it may be inevitable to direct more of NASA’s funds to the Kremlin for assistance – more years of astronauts having to launch from Kazakhstan rather than Cape Canaveral.

In a letter addressed to the Congress, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has notified lawmakers that the agency had to pay another $490 million for Russia’s services. NASA says there was no request Wednesday for extra funding. That comes to just about $82 million a seat, up from $71 million a seat.

NASA announced that amidst lack of U.S. Congressional funding, it has no other option that to rely on the Russian Soyuz to transport people to the ISS.

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.

“I am asking that we put past disagreements behind us and focus our collective efforts on support for American industry – the Boeing Corporation and SpaceX – to complete construction and certification of their crew vehicles so that we can begin launching our crews from the Space Coast of Florida in 2017”, Bolden said. The program’s goal is “to establish safe, reliable and cost-effective access to space”, according to NASA’s website.