OREANDA-NEWS. Russia and the United States agreed to purchase two additional seats on the Soyuz spacecraft to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This was reported to TASS by the executive director of Roscosmos for manned space programs, Sergey Krikalev. 

"Documents agreed", - he said. Krikalev also stressed that this happened before the emergency situation with the Crew Dragon ship created in the USA. According to Krikalev, no new document will be concluded. "This is just a modification to the old contract, everything passes in working order, there is no solemn signing of the contract. They agreed on all the clarifications and extended the validity period of the old contract - that's all," the executive director of the state corporation specified. In March, it became known that NASA plans to conclude an agreement with Roscosmos on the acquisition of two additional seats on the Russian Soyuz ships in 2019 and 2020. This was reported in the budget management request for the 2020 fiscal year.

Since 2011, only Russian Soyuz has delivered cosmonauts to the ISS. A promising spacecraft Crew Dragon from SpaceX was first launched to the station on March 2 and docked with it on March 3. Undocking took place on March 8th. The ship, after descending by parachute, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.

The first manned launch was to take place in July, but the source told the Russian media that the flight with the astronauts could be postponed to November. Earlier, the media reported on an emergency situation during the fire tests of the engines of the Crew Dragon at the launch site at Cape Canaveral. Then, the manufacturer of the SpaceX device confirmed the destruction of the capsule.Roscosmos didn't negotiate with NASA on the acquisition by Americans of additional space on the Soyuz manned spacecraft to deliver astronauts to the ISS after the crash at Crew Dragon, Krikalev added.