But Agency Will Continue To Buy Seats On Soyuz Aircraft

NASA Administrator James Bridenstine is confident that astronauts will again fly from U.S. soil next year, but sees the agency's relationship with Roscosmos continuing for several years.

In an interview with USA Today, Bridenstine (pictured) said "Without question, by the middle of next year, we'll be flying American astronauts on American rockets from American soil."

Since the end of the shuttle program in 2011, U.S. taxpayers have been paying up to $82 million per seat to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Boeing and SpaceX are both working on human-rated spacecraft that will be able to move at least some of those slots back to the United States.

USA Today reports that NASA's contract with Roscosmos runs through 2020, and Bridenstine said that the relationship will continue for at least several years. He said that the agency wants to maintain its partnership with Russia, and that cosmonauts might be carried to ISS aboard U.S. Commercial Crew spacecraft as well.

The current schedule indicates that SpaceX plans to fly two astronauts to ISS in April, 2019, while Boeing expects to launch a three-person crew to the station by the middle of next year.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report