Lockheed Martin, Boeing to explore deep space together with Russia
Source: itar-tass.com
Russian Space Corporation Energiya and Lockheed Martin plan adapting the newest US manned spaceship Orion for dockings with Russian spaceships, Vladimir Solntsev, the president of the corporation said in an interview published by Izvestia daily.“The space ships should be adapted to one another and common sense prompts us we should be able to dock them,” he believes. “It’s important to know how to lend shoulder to each other because any kind of situations may emerge.”
“And the Orion should also have capability to dock with other ships as it performs deep-space missions,” Solntsev said.
Energiya representatives discussed prospects for joint cooperation with counterparts from Lockheed Martin and Boeing last week.
“We signed a range of protocols on further collaboration at the end of those meetings,” Solntsev said. “Our US partners are interested in joint programmes for deep space exploration.”
“US companies and research organizations engaged in manned space flights have offered a range of new programmes to the Russian side recently,” he said. “In spite of a statement by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on a forthcoming withdrawal from the International Space Station project, Russian experts feel quite enthusiastic about US proposals on the whole.”
The first-ever docking of Russian and US spaceships took place in 1975 in the framework of the Soyuz-Apollo experimental project.
Source: itar-tass.com
