PARIS. June 14 (Interfax-AVN) - Head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov conducted negotiations with Joe Adams, Pratt&Whitney President, CEO, on developing future spacecraft power plants, including those for flying to the Moon and Mars, at the Paris Air Show 2005, which started in Le Bourget on Monday.
According to Perminov, they discussed a number of projects in the field of developing future spacecraft power plants. "For instance, we discussed the realization of the contract on delivering Russian RD-180 boosters to the U.S.," Perminov said, noting that the contract was being fulfilled in strict compliance with the timeframe, and that deliveries of such engines to the U.S. would continue.
He also pointed out that they had discussed possible space flights to the Moon and Mars. "In fact, we discussed developing engines for carrier rockets, tasked with flying to the Moon and Mars," he said.
Commenting on prospects of U.S. shuttles resuming flights to the International Space Station (ISS), Perminov said that the flights were expected to be resumed in July, but it was difficult to say when such flights would really be carried out.
He also emphasized that the Russian Federal Space Agency wanted the U.S. to fulfil its obligations with regards to ISS. According to Perminov, it will be impossible to support ISS, if U.S. shuttles do not resume flights.
Perminov pointed out that a number of ISS modules had initially been designed with such dimensions as to be launched to the orbit aboard U.S. shuttles only.