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LONDON: NASA extended its contract with Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station due to budget cuts that have delayed commercial U.S. alternatives, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday.
Extending the contract through 2017 will cost the United States about $490 million, NASA chief Charles Bolden wrote in a letter to Congress.
The deal for U.S. taxpayers to pay Moscow more than $80 million per seat on a Soyuz rocket comes at a time when Washington is ratcheting up sanctions against Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine.
“Unfortunately, for five years now, the Congress … has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned,” Bolden wrote.
“This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and international partner crews,” he added.
NASA retired its space shuttles in 2011. It is partnering with privately owned SpaceX and Boeing to develop space taxis that can ferry astronauts to and from the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (402 km) above Earth.
