MOSCOW. Jan 19 (Interfax) - A deal between Russia's Energia Corporation and the U.S. Boeing company will provide a guaranteed payload for Soyuz spaceships in 2019, the newspaper Izvestia said on Thursday.
"A Sea Launch settlement with the Americans has been made through barter. A Californian court ruled in fall of last year that Energia should pay $330 million to Boeing. The court thereby resolved a dispute between Boeing and Energia on the liability legacy of the Sea Launch international consortium, which went bankrupt in 2010," the newspaper said.
The latest NASA purchase of Soyuz seats from Roscosmos set the price of a ticket to the International Space Station (ISS) at $80 million, including pre-flight training. The price of five tickets to the ISS stands at $400 million. The probability that an option on three seats will be in demand is rather high, Izvestia said.
"The future of the option deepens on how rapidly Boeing creates the new spaceship, CST-100 Starliner. According to the company, the Starliner will perform its maiden manned flight in August 2018 and the first travel to the ISS will take place in December 2018," the newspaper said.
The newspaper mentioned Boeing's obligations to NASA. They entered into a contract in 2014 to pledge the transportation of astronauts to the ISS starting in 2018. "In case additional opportunities emerge in 2019, NASA may choose alternate transportation methods," the Boeing Moscow office told Izvestia.