Rogozin Says Idea To Land SpaceX Reusable Spacecraft On Water 'Not Comme Il Faut'

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2020) The head of Russia's Roscosmos State Space Corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, believes that the water landing of SpaceX's Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft is "not comme il faut" since it is an outdated method that has disadvantages.

"We know everything about this ship, we know its limitations and disadvantages that we saw during its landing and removal of the crew. Its landing is quite heavy. It is not designed for ground landing. Therefore our US colleagues chose to land on the water, as they did 45 years ago. Landing on water is not comme il faut," Rogozin told Sputnik.

According to him, the disadvantage of this landing method is the necessity of taking into account the weather conditions in the ocean, such as waves and wind - as well as the possibilities of rescue ships.

"For our new Orel spacecraft, we also consider water landing as an option, but this is more of an emergency landing, while regular landing will be performed on the ground," Rogozin added.

The new manned Orel spacecraft was designed by RSC Energia to deliver people and cargo to a low Earth orbit, as well as to the Moon. Its crew will include up to four people and the ship will be able to remain in orbit a maximum of 30 days in an automated flight mode, and up to a year as part of a space station system. The spacecraft is set to replace the Soyuz rocket, which is currently the only means of transporting astronauts to the ISS.

SpaceX made history back in May when it flew people to the International Space Station (ISS) on the world's first commercially-made spacecraft, dubbed Crew Dragon. On August 2, the spacecraft performed a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, finishing its flight to the ISS and bringing astronauts back to Earth. The water landing was the first of a US piloted spacecraft since 1975.