NASA's planned to purchase of two Soyuz seats for 2019 confirms the speculations of many people - the US is still not ready to transport astronauts into orbit by 2018.
Prior to this development, a news report that appeared on the website of Ars Tecnica revealed that NASA was hoping that at least one commercial vehicle, either the Starliner of Boeing or the Crew Dragon of Space X would be already capable of sending men to orbit by the end of this year or early in 2018. Apparently, this will no longer happen.
Last Tuesday, NASA revealed its intention to buy two seats in the Russian Soyuz for 2019. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Head of Human Spaceflight Bill Gerstenmaier, however, denied such report. Another report, however, revealed that the agency is also looking to buy two additional seats for 2017 and 2018.
Back in 2015, NASA anticipated delays with its commercial crew program. For this reason, the agency purchased seats on the Russian spacecraft Soyuz until 2018. In a report that appeared on the website of DM Soft Studio, the purchase of additional Soyuz seats was designed as a buffer for further delays in its commercial flight program. NASA is also managing the International Space Station.
The website of 4-traders revealed that the availability of seats in the ISS became a possibility as Russian plans to reduce the number of its crew in the station from three every six months to just two in attempts to reduce costs. This means that Russia will fly fewer cargo ships that deliver food and supplies to Russian crew on the station.
The additional two seats for NASA and its US crew will not become available until September 2017 which means that Fyodor Yurchikhin and Jack Fischer will continue to fly as a crew of two in March.
