Russian-US cross flights to ISS to begin in autumn of 2022

MOSSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Russia and the United States will begin to swap seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft with those on US Crew Dragon commercial crew vehicles (the so-called cross flights) not earlier than the autumn of 2022, Sergey Krikalev, Roscomos executive director for manned space programs, told TASS. "The roles in this crew [of the Soyuz MS-22] are being specified. And is we manage to agree all necessary documents, cross flights will begin in the autumn of 2022," he said, adding that the issue of cross flights requires coordination with the government and Roscosmos is currently doing it. The Soyuz MS-22 (ISS-68) crew currently includes Sergey Prokopyev, Anna Kikina, and Dmitry Petelin. Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said in late October that be believed that Crew Dragon spaceships of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company had gained substantial experience for Russian cosmonauts to travel aboard them as part of cross flights. Read more