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The Soyuz rocket is raised vertically on the launch pad on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for Thursday, October 11 with American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. (Bill Ingalls / NASA via AP) lessThe Soyuz rocket takes a vertical position on the launch pad on Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is … more
Photo: Bill Ingalls, AP
Photo: Bill Ingalls, AP
MOSCOW (AP) – The head of the US Space Agency said Tuesday that he was certain that investigators would determine the cause of a mysterious hole appeared on the International Space Station, which his Russian counterpart declared to have been deliberately drilled.
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine also said that collaboration with Russia's Roscosmos remained important, despite recent comments from head of the agency, Dmitry Rogozin, that Russia would not accept not a "second-rate role" in a NASA-led project to build a post near the Moon.
The hole in a Russian Soyuz capsule moored to the ISS caused a brief loss of atmospheric pressure in August before being repaired. The incident sparked widespread speculation and consternation.
"I firmly believe that we will get the right answer to the cause of the hole in the International Space Station and that together we will continue our strong collaboration," said Bridenstine. "What we must do is that we must allow the investigation to proceed with extreme passion, without speculation, without rumors, without insinuations, without conspiracy."
Although the United States is working on commercial launches to the ISS, Russia should not consider itself marginalized, he said.
"There is a day when we will have our own access to the International Space Station through a commercial team.I want to be very clear: this will not replace the Russian capabilities of Soyuz. redundancy and we want to make sure that even when a commercial crew is operational, we will always launch US astronauts on Soyuz rockets and we want Russian cosmonauts to launch rockets on commercial crews in the United States ", said Bridenstine.
Regarding the NASA-led Gateway project to build a lunar outpost in orbit, Rogozin recently said that Russia can not afford to participate in secondary projects from other countries. But Bridenstine said that international participation in the project is essential.
"We will build an architecture between the Earth and the Moon where we can do a lot of back and forth with robots, landers, rovers and humans … All the architecture between the Earth and the Moon must be reused, "he said.
Bridenstine met with Rogozin in Moscow on Tuesday and will participate in Thursday's launch of a capsule piloted to the space station from the Russian Baikonur Space Complex in Kazakhstan.
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