FILE PHOTO: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks to the media during a pre-launch briefing before the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft launches on a Falcon 9 booster rocket from Pad39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, May 29, 2020. REUTERS / Steve Nesius
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday that he still hoped for support from the Russian space corporation in its lunar program Artemis despite the Moscow space chief criticizing the US-led lunar effort.
Bridenstine said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that “the relationship between NASA and Roscosmos is solid” and emphasized that international partners will play a key role in NASA’s plan to land humans on the lunar surface by 2024 and build a station space that orbits the moon.
“I have a good relationship with Dmitri Rogozin, so I hope there will be opportunities for us to continue collaborating,” Bridenstine said, referring to the CEO of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos. But Rogozin called the lunar program in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on Monday a “political project” and compared it to NATO, the western military alliance that Russia has long rejected.
“With the lunar project, we are witnessing the departure of our American partners from the principles of cooperation and mutual support that have been developed with the ISS,” said Rogozin. “Frankly speaking, we are not interested in participating in such a project.” The Trump administration unveiled in May an international pact called the Artemis Accords, aiming to build on its existing relationships on the International Space Station and welcome deals with “like-minded” countries to help build a long-term presence in the moon under current international space law.
NASA expects Russia to deliver its offer for an airlock for the Lunar Gateway, a planned outpost in lunar orbit that will be built by a combination of private companies and countries and a key player for the Artemis program.
For two decades, the U.S. space relationship with Russia has been largely isolated from geopolitics on Earth, in part because of NASA’s reliance on Soyuz launch vehicles for trips to the space station. NASA is now preparing to fly its astronauts in new space capsules from SpaceX and Boeing Co.
Joey Roulette Reports; edited by Bill Tarrant and Gerry Doyle
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