In Washington While a seat-barter agreement between NASA and Roscosmos is still being finalised, the director of Roscosmos stated Dec. 8 that the organisation has chosen the first cosmonaut to fly on a SpaceX commercial crew trip to the International Space Station.
The sole woman currently employed by the Russian Cosmonaut Corps is Kikina. Although Rogozin and other Russian officials had earlier stated she would fly in the fall of 2022, she was chosen in 2012 and has yet to fly in space. She would probably go on the Crew-5 Crew Dragon mission, which is presently being carried out by NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata.
Rogozin and Roscosmos did not disclose any additional information regarding the flight; Roscosmos merely tweeted a passage from Rogozin’s statement.
However, Rogozin’s statement hinted that NASA and Roscosmos had finally reached an agreement to exchange seats on Soyuz and commercial crew flights, resulting in what NASA has referred to as “mixed crews” on those vehicles. This strategy guarantees that, in the event of a prolonged Soyuz or commercial crew vehicle grounding, there will always be at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut on board the station.
President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a video conversation on December 7 that the United States and its allies “will respond with significant economic and other measures in the case of military escalation,” according to a readout from the White House. The readout made no more mention of these actions or their potential repercussions on interstellar cooperation.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration would not publicly discuss specifics regarding actions it would take in the event that Russia attacked Ukraine during a later press briefing. By coordinating with European nations, he said, “but we are laying out for the Russians in some detail the types of steps that we have in mind.”
