Brazilian astronaut to ride Russian ship to space station

Russia clinched a deal Tuesday with Brazil on sending a Brazilian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian spaceship next year.

Russia's Federal Space Agency and the Brazilian Space Agency signed an agreement to send Brazilian Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Pontes to space on Russian spacecraft, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.

The signing ceremony in the Kremlin was witnessed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Brazilian counterpart, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is in town on a two-day visit.

Pontes, the country's first astronaut to visit the ISS, has arrived in Moscow for pre-flight training. He is to ride aloft with the next ISS crew in late March 2006 and spend about 10 days in space.

Brazil has to pay about 20 million US dollars to buy a seat on a Russian Soyuz spaceship, which has been serving as the sole workhorse of the space station for more than two years since US shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it returned to Earth in 2003.

Earlier this month, US millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen took a ride on a Soyuz ship to spend about a week on the ISS as the world's third private citizen to visit the station. He was preceded by American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shuttleworth.

Source: Xinhua