Congress Inquires About NASA/Russia Soyuz Deals
Letter From House Science Committee Republicans To NASA On Soyuz Flights
“NASA’s recent solicitation for “International Space Station Seat Exchange,” indicated that “NASA has no remaining crew seats on Soyuz.” At the January 2018 Committee hearing, the NASA witness testified that “[t]he manufacturing time of a Soyuz of approximately 3 years will not allow additional Soyuz to be manufactured.” Given the information and testimony listed above, it appears that NASA may be seeking to procure a Russian Soyuz seat from a third-party, on a noexchange-of-funds-basis, and that a formal agreement between NASA and Russia for seat exchanges may not be in place. In order for the Committee to better understand what NASA intends to use the aforementioned solicitation to procure, and more specifically, how it intends to procure those services, please facilitate a bipartisan briefing for Committee staff. If you have any questions related to this request, please contact Mr. Tom Hammond with the minority Committee staff.”
NASA Wants To Buy Russian While The White House Says Buy American (Update), earlier post
“So … why is it that NASA is buying a seat from Roscosmos via a third party? Axiom Space has to be making some money off of this, right? So why go through Axiom Space and pay them a fee when NASA can just go directly to Roscosmos – minus the Axiom Space reselling path – as NASA has done for decades? Wouldn’t that be cheaper? Does this involve the $140 million deal that Axiom Space has with NASA to study their commercial space station module? Or … does the use of Axiom Space (an American company) as a middle man provide a way to technically “buy American”?”
Once Starliner finally starts flying crew to ISS, I don’t see a huge need to keep flying astronauts on Soyuz. I understand that NASA would like at least one American on ISS at all times, but I don’t see Soyuz as being the best way of accomplishing that goal long term.
Sounds like it’s happening: https://tass.ru/kosmos/1077…
_Rogozin said that the first manned launch on the ISS in 2021 will take place on April 9_
<<“Our next launch is just before the anniversary of the Cosmonautics Day, this one will be on April 9th. We are sending an international crew,” Rogozin said.>>
This had previously been planed as an all-Russian crew.
I noticed that the Soyuz MS-18 crew patch had Mark Vande Hei’s name on it, so they bought that seat.
Not quite. NASA barter a seat on an upcoming commercial crew flight for a Soyuz seat. No funds was exchanged.
Are you reporting recent news?
The intent has been to swap seats (so medical evacuation of a single crew member wouldn’t result in the evacuation of an entire segment’s crew — ROS or USOS), but while the Russians are still on board with the idea, they’ve been slow on the uptake, claiming DM-1 wasn’t enough, and wanting to see Crew Dragon fly a full duration crew rotation mission before considering it “flight proven”. Thus the seat swapping wouldn’t start until the fall with Crew-3 and MS-19.
These recent discussions have been about NASA securing a seat on MS-18 not directly from the Russians, but through Axios in exchange for “in-kind services”.
Have you heard something different?
The Axiom flight is a commercial crew flight. So a seat on an Axiom flight is a Commercial Crew seat. NASA will reimburse Axiom for the cost of the seat if a Cosmonaut fly up to the ISS in an Axiom flight.
That’s not the question.
Do you have recent information to suggest that Vande Hei flying on MS-18 is part of the planned Commercial Crew / Soyuz seat swapping program? Reporting surrounding this suggests otherwise.
During Monday’s SpaceX Crew-2 Mission presser, Joel Montalbano (ISS Program Manager) reiterated their long-term goal of eventually swapping seats between Commercial Crew and Soyuz, but referred to this as a “procurement” — one which he could not comment on as they are in a blackout period, though he hopes to be able to speak to it by the end of next week.
Nauka is still expected to launch in July, right? I’d have thought the Russians would have been reluctant to sell a seat on MS-18, as they’d want a full complement of three cosmonauts for Expedition 65.