Russian Space Chief Says No Military Research on ISS
Posted on: Thursday, 14 October 2004, 06:00 CDT
Excerpt from report by Russian NTV on 14 October
[Presenter] The 10th main expedition to the International Space Station [ISS] was launched today. The launch of the TMA-5 Soyuz spacecraft from the Baykonur cosmodrome took place at about 0700 hours Moscow time [0300 gmt]. Vladislav Sorokin reports from the Mission Control Centre [MCC].
[Correspondent] The MCC has not worried so much for a long time. And they had a good reason for that - the launch of the 10th expedition to the ISS was postponed twice. [Passage omitted]
Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov will stay on the ISS for more than six months. The third crew member, Yuriy Shargin, is the first representative of the Russian Space Troops to go into space. Not much is known about the aims of his mission - 14 experiments in the field of biotechnology and medicine as well as technical experiments. Plus visual observations. The MCC has given assurances that there will be no military research.
[Vladimir Solovyev, captioned as flight chief of the Russian segment of the ISS] We, on the ISS, are not involved in military matters. We have a whole series of experiments in geophysics, i.e. research of the Earth, and astrophysics, i.e. research of the outer atmosphere, including the Sun and the Moon. We are carrying out a lot of technological research this time, as well as medical and biological research.
[Passage omitted]
[Correspondent] Today's Soyuz launch was the last one of the flights the Russian side took upon itself after the US Columbia shuttle disaster last year. Shuttle flights are to resume in 2005, and already in March next year the 11th expedition to the ISS will go in a US shuttle. However for the time being the sides are abstaining from making official comments. Representatives of the Russian Aerospace Agency and NASA are expected to make them on Saturday [16 October] after the Soyuz-ISS docking.
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