Roskosmos 2018 will resume tourist flights to the ISS – RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, March 24 – RIA Novosti. Roscosmos plans in 2018 to resume tourist flights to the ISS in order to compensate for the drop in demand for ships “Union”, said the head of Roscosmos organization in the field of manned space flight ” RSC “Energia”.

“compensate for the drop in demand for manned transport ships such as” Union “after 2018 is expected due to the resumption of short-term missions to the Russian segment of the ISS on a commercial basis,” – said in a quarterly report of “RSC “Energy”.

The report notes that, in connection with the plans of US commercial companies to establish a manned spacecraft Russian monopoly on the market manned spaceflight projected short-lived. In addition, the document says, the world market increases the risk of reducing the demand for Russian manned spacecraft without improving their technical and cost characteristics due to the systematic improvement of China’s manned space vehicle “Shen Zhou” and the creation of a national Chinese space station “Tiangong”.

Currently, vacancies third crew member on the ship “Soyuz” buys NASA. According to the

newspaper “Izvestia”, this fall may Roscosmos will sign a contract with NASA sending crews to the ISS in 2018. This contract may be the last of its kind since 2018. NASA contractors promise to finish and complete testing of new manned spacecraft, primarily from the SpaceX Dragon Elon Musk and CST-100 from Boeing.