The statement comes in the wake of the spacecraft's designer, U.S. company SpaceX, request to NASA for authorization to dock with the ISS in December, 2011. NASA recently announced a multi-million dollar commercial crew development contract with the firm, a leading contender to build commercial launch capacity for human astronauts within three years.
"We will not issue docking permission unless the necessary level of reliability and safety [of the spacecraft] is proven. So far we have no proof that those spacecraft duly comply with the accepted norms of spaceflight safety," said Alexei Krasnov, who heads the manned spaceflight department of Russia's space agency Roscosmos.
According to the SpaceX 2011's launch schedule, two Dragon flights are to take place in 2011. During the first flight, the spacecraft will perform the flyby of the ISS, approaching to within 10 km from the station. During the second mission, it is hoped to dock with the ISS.
The reaction in the Congress will be most interesting over the next few weeks as conservatives come to realize that the Russians are saying "Neyt" to American private industry as the international space station.
