This is not a step forward for peace, but rather a step forward for science.
NASA announced on Friday that it would resume joint flights with the Russians to the International Space Station (ISS), in order to ensure "the safety of operations" of the station, despite the efforts of the United States to isolate Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.
The announcement came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin.
Since the Russian offensive against Ukraine, he has distinguished himself by his very bellicose declarations towards the West.
Joint mixed flights from September
Two American astronauts will fly aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on two separate missions, the first of which is scheduled for September.
Two Russian cosmonauts will also fly aboard SpaceX rockets, a first.
Such an exchange had been planned for a long time, but was still awaiting final validation from Russia.
It had seemed compromised after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, but NASA officials had repeated in recent weeks that they hoped it would take place.
“To ensure the continued safety of International Space Station operations, to protect the lives of astronauts, and to ensure the continued presence of Americans in space, NASA will resume integrated flights on American and Russian spacecraft. Soyuz,” the agency said in a statement.
American astronaut Frank Rubio will fly aboard a Soyuz rocket scheduled to take off from Kazakhstan on September 21, along with two Russian cosmonauts.
American astronaut Loral O'Hara will also fly aboard a Russian spacecraft on a subsequent mission in the spring of 2023. In addition, Anna Kikina, the only active female cosmonaut, will be part of the Crew-5 crew which is due to take off in September aboard a SpaceX rocket.
And cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev will fly with Crew-6, also in the spring of 2023.
Essential cooperation for the operation of the ISS
After the shutdown of American space shuttles in 2011, the United States was forced to send its astronauts to the ISS by buying seats on board Soyuz rockets from the Russian space agency Roscomos.
Since the end of this monopoly in 2020 with SpaceX's first flight to the ISS, crews have flown almost exclusively on rockets from their respective countries.
The last astronaut to travel aboard a Soyuz was American Mark Vande Hei, who took off in April 2021. He returned almost a year later, also brought back from Moscow, when the war in Ukraine had already begun. .
After his return to Earth, he assured that the Russian cosmonauts remained "very dear friends", despite the very strong diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: in space, weakened partnerships with Russia
The exchanges announced on Friday are made without other financial counterparties.
Because the resumption of collaboration between the two countries in the space field does not mean a warming of relations between Washington and Moscow.
The United States has also imposed drastic sanctions against Russia, which partly affect the Russian aerospace industry.
Dmitry Rogozin, the boss of the Russian space agency thanked today, has also continued to protest against these sanctions, including European sanctions.
This week, the European Space Agency announced that it was ending its cooperation with Russia on the joint ExoMars mission, which had already been suspended for several months.
But the International Space Station is unique.
It was "designed to be interdependent and relies on the contributions of each of the space agencies to operate," NASA said on Friday.
“No agency has the ability to operate independently of others.
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