NASA Secures 12 Space Trips from RosCosmos

Officials at the American space agency announce that they recently signed a new contract with their Russian counterparts, which allows the United States to secure spots for 12 round trips to space.

As the space shuttles are scheduled to retire, later this year, NASA is left in an awkward position in which it does not yet have a spacecraft ready to replace the orbiters. As such, it needs to turn to Russia for help.

The nation is one of the few countries that still retain orbital capabilities, and is the only one that can deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The other manned space vehicle the world has is the Chinese Shenzhou capsule, which cannot dock to the orbital lab.

As such, NASA needed to ask the Russians for seats on their three-astronaut Soyuz capsules. The new contract the two space agencies signed is worth $753 million. It specifies that the coast America will have to pay for each seat is $63 million.

Initially, there was talk that each flight would only cost the US around $50 million, but it would seem that some renegotiations took place behind closed doors recently. The contract covers 2014 and 2015.

NASA and RosCosmos have already signed contracts for carrying American astronauts to space between 2013 and 2014. Each of those flights will cost the US some $55.8 million, and the Americans contracted 6 Soyuz seats.

“It's an 8.5 percent annual increase. The increase covers just the general inflation rate in Russia for the cost of processing and preparation,” said of the highest prices NASA needs to pay Josh Bluck, a spokesman for NASA.

The new agreement is tremendously useful for the space agency, which is currently investing heavily in private companies. These organizations have various proposals for constructing spacecraft that could reach and resupply the ISS.

However, private manned spacecraft are still several years away, and this is why NASA needed to secure its access to space somehow. Buying seats on the Soyuz capsule was indeed the best option available, especially when considering the reliability of these vehicles.

“We are still anticipating having the availability of domestic commercial crew transportation by the middle of the decade,” Bluck explains. This mens that the first such spacecraft would fly four years after the shuttles have been retired.

NASA has used all means at its disposal to attempt to reduce this gap in capability, but the global economic downturn, and a federal budget crisis, meant it stood no chance in getting its point across, Space reports.

“The president's 2012 budget request boosts funding for our partnership with the commercial space industry and prioritizes our efforts to ensure that American astronauts and the cargo they need are transported by American companies rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says.

“This new approach in getting our crews and cargo into orbit will create good jobs and expand opportunities for our American economy,” he goes on to say.