IPFS News Link • China
China Has Not Been Invited to Join International Space Station, NASA Says
• Space.comChina's national space program has not been invited to join the International Space Station project, despite a news report from Russia suggesting otherwise, NASA officials told SPACE.com.
NASA spokesperson John Yembrick said that while NASA is always seeking new partnerships, the agency and its space station partners have not invited China to join the $100 billion space station program.
The report cited comments made by Russian space agency chief Anatoly Perminov to the Interfax news service last week at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. In the Interfax report, Perminov reportedly said Russia had contacted Chinese space officials to see if there was any interest in using the latter country's Shenzhou vehicles as a backup for the Russian Soyuz space taxis that ferry crews to and from the space station.
Perminov reportedly said Russia had not yet received a response. However, Yembrick said no overture had in fact been made to China by the 16-nation consortium building the International Space Station. The space station has been under construction since 1998 and is nearly complete.
China is the third country after Russia and the United States to build and launch spacecraft capable of flying humans into space. The country launched its first astronaut into space in 2003, with two more missions in 2005 and 2008. The latter included a three-man crew and China's first spacewalk.
The country is also developing plans for a Chinese space station, the first module of which is called Tiangong 1 and is slated to launch in 2011.
Some space agency leaders have mentioned the potential for cooperating with China on future space ventures.