OREANDA-NEWS. The press service of Russian state corporation Roscosmos commented on the article “Russia's status as a space power will end with the start of NASA's commercial crew” by Mark Whittington published in The Hill newspaper.

According to the company’s representatives, rumors about the end of Russian cosmonautics after the launch of the US private manned spacecraft are greatly exaggerated. The state corporation added that the American partners, “for many years” promise to launch their manned ships, while they still buy seats on Russian spaceships Soyuz.

It is noted in Whittington’s article that with the launch of US ships, the dependence of American astronauts on Russia, which is now the main space carrier, will end. In the publication, Whittington mentioned recent accidents on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which, in his opinion, indicates a quality control problem in Russian space industry. According to him, in future, Russia will lack for money that it receives for the seats at the Soyuz (about 85 million US dollars per one seat) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Earlier in November, the US Vice President announced the launch of American astronauts to the International Space Station on SpaceX and Boeing’s Crew Dragon ship by March 2020. Despite this, NASA purchased from Roscosmos seats on the Soyuz spacecraft for the autumn of 2020 and the spring of 2021. The Administrator of the space agency Jim Bridenstein explained this by the delay of launches of American spaceships.