Anna Kikina will be the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on the Crew Dragon. The image is from the Roscosmos.
NASA and the Russian space agency are close to an agreement that will allow the first cosmonaut to fly on a spaceship.
The plan was to launch a cosmonaut on the Crew-5 mission in the fall of 2022.
Montalbano said that the plan is to fly a cosmonaut on the Crew-5 mission next fall and then launch a NASA astronauts on a Soyuz mission. The plans are currently being finalized through government agreements.
The crew dragon is safe enough to fly Russian cosmonauts.
The announcement was made by Russian officials on December 8th, however, the two agencies have been trying to reach an agreement since the beginning of the Commercial Crew Program. Anna Kikina is the only female in Russia's cosmonaut corps.
Montalbano said that a cosmonaut has already started training for the mission. Montalbano didn't confirm that it was Kikina who would fly on the mission.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were originally assigned to Boeing's first crewed mission, but were later assigned to the Crew-5 mission. The crew of four will be rounded out by the addition of Mann and Wakata.
The Russian space agency pledged a seat in a Russian capsule to an American in return for her seat on the Dragon.
NASA hoped this exchange of seats would be the start of its commercial crew program. Three of the four missions that have been launched by the company are long-duration missions. A crewed test flight proved that Crew Dragon could safely deliver astronauts to and from the space station.
One of the two companies that NASA chose to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit and back was SpaceX. The duo was selected in the year 2014, with the sole company to launch astronauts thus far being SpaceX.
Two years ago, Boeing's Starliner was unable to reach the International Space Station due to multiple software anomalies. The company spent 18 months working with NASA to make sure that any issues were fixed before the flight.
While sitting on the launch pad leading up to the second uncrewed test flight, several valves within the spacecraft's propulsion system were stuck shut. Boeing had to send the spacecraft back to the factory to fix the problem.
The valves were shut because of the interactions with the fuel. Engineers are working to resolve the issues and get the spacecraft ready to fly for its next launch attempt, which is scheduled for no earlier than May 2022.
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