Russia’s Roscosmos tasks RSC Energia to ramp up spacecrafts’ production for space tourism

Moscow, Dec 16 (FN Agency) The head of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, has tasked Russian spacecraft manufacturer RSC Energia to plan for supplying up to four manned spacecrafts Soyuz MS per year for development of space tourism, Roscosmos announced on Thursday. “I am instructing RSC Energia to submit to Roscosmos a concrete action plan to increase production capacity in order to build up to four crewed spacecraft per year,” Rogozin said.

He added that since the United States began launching manned spacecrafts, Russia is no longer bound to deliver foreign astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and can send teams with up to three Russian cosmonauts to the station. He also noted that space tourism could bring money to help develop the space sector. In recent years, RSC Energia has been producing four Soyuz MS spacecrafts per year, two for needs of Russia and two for delivering foreign astronauts to the ISS under international contracts.