Akhir 10, 1432 H/March 15, 2011, SPA -- Following the end of the space shuttle era, the US space agency NASA has booked places for its astronauts on Russian Soyuz capsules through 2015, at a cost of 753 million dollars, dpa cited reports as saying. NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos extended by two years a deal that they already had in place, Russian media reported Tuesday out of Washington. NASA is putting its shuttle fleet out of service this year, so the it will have no alternative to the Soyuz capsules for transport of its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) over the coming years. Russia has made a business of ferrying foreign astronauts into space. NASA is paying 55.8 million dollars per place on Soyuz capsules through 2014 and another 62.7 million dollars per seat through to 2015, a NASA official told space.com. Roscosmos had already announced a price increase before the retirement of the shuttle programme, which will happen later this year after the final two flights of Atlantis and Endeavour shuttles. The income will be used for the construction of a new space centre in the far east of Russia, among other Russian space projects.
