The state corporation “Roskosmos” and the private company “Reusable space transport systems” (MTKS) have decided to build a reusable transport spacecraft. This was reported by RBC with reference to an agreement on cooperation between the two enterprises.
As conceived by the authors of the Russian project, it should compete with the ship of the American entrepreneur Elon Musk's Crew Dragon. It is noted that the delivery of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth on Crew Dragon will cost about $ 150 million, while the cost of the Russian mission should be about $ 69 million.
The cargo ship “Argo”, jointly developed by Roscosmos and MTKS, should be completed by 2024. From 2025, it is planned to provide up to three launches per year to the ISS.
Earlier, the general director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin complained of ridicule from the United States after the launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS. According to him, after the successful test of the ship in Washington, they began to shower it with jokes, although “it would be appropriate to thank our Soyuz, its Soviet developers and Russian engineers, who in recent years have continued to modernize this most reliable manned ship in the world.”
