Head of the American company Spacex Ilon Mask called the interest of honor of the delivery of Russian astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), RIA Novosti reports, referring to the statement of a businessman and an engineer, made during direct launch broadcast Falcon 9 launch with the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“For us will be a matter of honor to carry astronauts on [Crew] Dragon,” said the head of Spacex, without specifying specific deadlines, when the American spacecraft will begin to be used to send Russians to the ISS.
In April Falcon 9 Crew Dragon from the site in the John Kennedy Space Center in Florida launched to an ISS with four astronauts from the USA, France and Japan. This mission (Spacex Crew-2) has become the second regular for Crew Dragon. According to Spacex, after starting the first stage, Falcon 9 made a successful landing on the platform of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, Spacex in the 80th time saved the first stage of the rocket used for the orbital launch.
In the same month, the Acting Head of NASA Steve Yurikchik in a conversation with Spaceflight Now said that the first flight of the Russian astronaut at Crew Dragon to the ISS will probably be as part of the SPACEX CREW-4 mission, that is, not earlier than the first quarter of 2022 .
In March “Interfax”, with reference to the head of the center of training of astronauts (CPC), Pavel Vlasov said that Russian cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov in the near future can go to the ISS on Crew Dragon.