Washington, Aug 5 (Agency) NASA intends to work with its Russian partners on updating the agreement for cross-flights of astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station (ISS) after completing its Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, NASA’s International Space Station Program Manager Joel Montalbano told reporters on Thursday. When asked about the plans to include the US Starliner spacecraft in the agreement with Russia, Montalbano said, “Our plan is: after we get passed the CFT mission, we will start, we’ll do an update to the agreement and work with our Russian colleagues.”
Montalbano said NASA’s long-term goal is to have integrated crews on all missions to space. “We want to get couple of the Boeing missions moving forward and right after CFT we’ll be putting that ion work,” he said. Former Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said earlier this year that no Russian cosmonauts will fly onboard the Starliner spacecraft due to safety concerns. In July, Roscosmos and NASA signed an agreement on cross-flights of cosmonauts to the International Space Station (ISS). As part of the agreement, the only female cosmonaut at Roscosmos, Anna Kikina, will fly to the ISS on the US-made Crew Dragon spacecraft and US astronaut Francisco Rubio will fly on the Russian-made Soyuz MS-22 spaceship.