MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia plans to take steps after 2012 and raise the fees it charges for delivering foreign crewmembers to the International Space Station (ISS) on board its Soyuz spacecraft, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Anatoly Perminov told Interfax-AVN.
"I would like to bring up the issue of the station-related transport service at a meeting of space agency chiefs in Tokyo. We have an agreement valid until 2012. Russia is responsible for this job. But what will happen after this year? Please, excuse me, but the prices will be totally different then," Perminov said.
Fees that should be charged for these services need to be sufficient both to pay for space rocket launches and to invest in efforts to develop the domestic spacecraft manufacturing industry, the official said.
Roscosmos and NASA signed an agreement earlier to use Russia's Soyuz spaceships to deliver astronauts to the orbiting outpost in 2012. The U.S. pledged to pay $306 million to Russia for these services. Similar agreements for 2010 and 2011 were also signed.
NASA is expected to close down the Space Shuttle Program at the end of 2010, and the U.S. plans to send its astronauts into space aboard commercial spacecraft, the use of which, however, could begin no earlier than 2014.