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Russia eyes Chinese spaceships as backup for Soyuz

08 July 2010 22:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Chinese spaceships meet all safety requirements and could fly to the International Space Station, Russian space officials said Thursday, APA reports quoting news.xinhuanet.com website.

"I think Chinese spaceships would play an important role as a backup for the Russian vessels Soyuz and Progress in case of some unforeseen situations," Anatoli Perminov head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos,told RIA Novosti news agency.

After U.S. space shuttles cease their missions in 2011, Russia will remain the only country capable of delivering crews to the ISS.

"This is rather busy work and we, certainly, are interesting in obtaining a backup China could provide," Perminov said.

So far, China has not shown interest in participating in the ISS project. Five participating countries earlier sent an invitation to join in to the Chinese space agency.