Russia Sets Out Space Station Plans, New Accord With NASA

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Korolev (Moscow Region), 16 October: Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) has approved a schedule of operations to complete the construction of the Russian segment at the International Space Station (ISS), Nikolay Moiseyev, Roskosmos deputy head, told reporters today after the Soyuz ship [with a Russian-American crew of three] successfully docked with the ISS.

“The construction of the Russian segment will be completed in 2011. In 2007, a Russian Proton carrier rocket will orbit the FGB-2 multifunctional lab module. In 2009, a science and energy platform will join the ISS, which will be carried by a US space shuttle. And in 2011 a Proton will launch another lab module,” Moiseyev said.

He went on to say that in early October Roskosmos head Anatoliy Perminov and NASA chief Sean O’Keefe signed an agreement on the operation of the ISS in 2005. “Both we and our US colleagues think that the accords the sides reached in the course of talks, which were not easy, are mutually beneficial and fair,” Moiseyev underlined.

Meanwhile, Aleksey Krasnov, the chief of the manned flight department at Roskosmos, told reporters that Roskosmos and NASA had adopted an interim barter scheme to operate the ISS for the duration of 2005. “The talks”, he said, “were split into stages.”

Thus, Russia’s commitments in line with which astronauts are taken to the ISS aboard Soyuz spacecraft come to an end in 2005. That was why the sides agreed a barter scheme, whereby what Russia owes in man-hours is written off by the USA, while Russia – for one more year – will continue to use its spacecraft to ferry astronauts free of charge.

In 2006, however, “we’ll switch to a mixed system of barter and commercial operations, and it is this scheme for cooperation in 2006- 2010 that will be discussed at the second stage of negotiations in November”, Krasnov said.

In addition to issues to do with crew rotation and rescue, the sides will also discuss the possible acquisition of an energy provision facility by Russia from the USA, Krasnov said. At present, he explained, the absence of a Russian energy platform means the ISS is supplied with electricity by generators in the US segment.

[Russia and NASA agreed that, from 2006, Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be paid for, Krasnov said, as reported by RIA news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0845 gmt 16 Oct 04. "The scheme that our mutual ties with NASA will be based on will be both barter and payments. It will cover the expenses of the Russian side between the years of 2006 and 2009," Krasnov said.]