The American company paid Roscosmos in rubles for the flight of astronaut Mark Vande Hay to the International Space Station, said the general director of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin on the air of the Rossiya 24 TV channel
“We received full funding from not NASA, but specifically from Axiom, which acted as an intermediary in organizing this mission,” the head of Roscosmos said, adding that the payment was made in rubles.
Rogozin added that Axiom Space made the payment a month later, but in full.
What else is known:
When organizing the flight, NASA chose Axiom Space as an intermediary due to pressure from Congress, and Axiom Space then bought a seat on a Russian ship, the head of Roscosmos added. Rogozin said in April that Vande Hai’s flight cost about two billion rubles.
On April 9, 2021, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) along with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Petr Dubrov on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. High replaced Russian cosmonaut Sergei Korsakov.
Vande Hai returned to Earth on March 30. Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov were with him. The descent vehicle of the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft landed on the territory of Kazakhstan, about 147 kilometers southeast of Zhezkazgan.
