William Atkins
Friday, 29 May 2009 19:39
Science -
Space
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The U.S. space agency NASA has contracted with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RSA, or Roskosmos) for crew transportation and related services to the International Space Station for the years 2012 and 2013.
The $306 million firm-fixed-price agreement was added onto the current International Space Station contract.
The addition to the contract provides for four Soyuz vehicles and all of the necessary support to launch two missions in the spring of 2012 and another two in the fall of 2012, with landings in the fall of 2012 and spring of 2013, respectively.
The series of Soyuz spacecraft have been in operation since 1966. They were used to carry Soviet cosmonauts to and from Salyut and later Mir space stations.
They are currently used to support manned International Space Station operations.
In fact, a Soyuz spacecraft (series Soyuz TMA), launched by a Soyuz launch vehicle, is always docked at the Space Station in case its crew members need to escape it during an emergency.
Currently, the
Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft, the 102nd manned flight of the Soyuz spacecraft, was launched at 1034 GMT on May 27, 2009 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
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