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The official said Rosaviacosmos has already ordered Tito's crewmates -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Baturin and his Kazakh counterpart Talgat Musabayev, as well as their backup crew -- to begin training at JSC on March 20 "with or without" the U.S. millionaire. All of the cosmonauts are to return to Russia on March 24, he said.
Rosaviacosmos spokesman Konstantin Kreydenko told SPACE.com that "our official position is that the Russian side will fulfill its contractual obligations and Tito will fly to the ISS on April 30, regardless of NASA's position." On the other hand, "Russia promises that it will fulfill its obligations related to safety at the station and its further deployment."
Kreydenko described the March 19 decision by Baturin and Musabayev to skip training as an unsanctioned "strike staged out of solidarity."
"Today [Rosaviacosmos director] Yuri Koptev has ordered [them] to begin training, and they will," Kreydenko said.
The Russian cosmonauts and Musabayev were supposed to start training at JSC on March 19, but balked after learning that center officials refused to let Tito join them.
"This was an emotional outburst that we did not approve of," said the Rosaviacosmos official, who asked not to be named. "They will have to train, even though we would very much like to have Dennis Tito train with them." He said the agency's "official position" is that Tito will fly to the international station on April 30, even if NASA refuses to let him train at the Houston center.
"We can always use mathematical models of the U.S. segment that we possess to prepare him. This would be sufficient enough for a short flight like his," the official said.
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Having undergone this training, Tito will take final tests and medical examinations before being cleared for the flight, he said.
The official dismissed NASA's concerns about safety risks that Tito may pose to the ISS. He said Tito can stay in Russia's Zvezda service module and "neither interfere [with], nor enter" the U.S. parts of the station.
The official said Rosaviacosmos might agree to delay Tito's trip to the station only if the millionaire himself bows to pressure from NASA and agrees to postpone his flight until October.
Next page: A German astronaut with Soyuz training could replace Tito.
Rosaviacosmos has no plans to replace the main crew of the April 30 mission with a backup crew and may only launch Baturin and Musabayev in the three-seat Soyuz TM, even though the European Space Agency and NASA have suggested they replace Tito with German astronaut Thomas Reiter.
A former air force pilot and member of the ESA's astronaut corps, Reiter went to Mir in 1995 and spent a record-breaking 179 days onboard the station. Between October 1996 and July 1997, Reiter underwent training for Soyuz TM spacecraft operations, including de-docking, atmospheric reentry and landing.
He was awarded the Russian Soyuz Return Commander certificate, which qualifies him to command a three-person Soyuz capsule during its return from space.
But besides training, there are technological considerations. The Rosaviacosmos official said it would take "too long" to manufacture a spacesuit and a Soyuz TM seat for Reiter. Both are custom-made the by the Tomilino-based Zvezda Scientific Production Enterprise (ZSPE).
Time is also running out for the Soyuz TM capsule, currently docked to the station, that delivered the first permanent crew to the ISS on October 30. Soyuz capsules can only spend up to six months in space before crucial onboard systems, like the landing parachute, can start to deteriorate.
"We can extend its (the Soyuz TM) 180-day service life for a week or two and delay the April 30 launch, but this won't help," the official said.
Vitaly Svershchek, deputy director of ZSPE, told SPACE.com that his company wouldn't be able to make either the suit or the seat for Reiter in time for the April 30 mission. It takes an average of one month to manufacture a custom-made Soyuz TM seat, and anywhere between three and six months to manufacture a spacesuit, Svershchek said.
"As for the suit that was made for [Reiter] six years ago -- its warranty expired long ago as there are some rubber components that should have been replaced," Svershchek said in a phone interview.
Svershchek said he was aware of the proposal to launch Reiter, but noted that his company has not been officially contacted to make either the seat or the suit for him.
Reiter, who arrived in Moscow on March 15 to start training for a flight to the ISS, cut his visit short and left for the Johnson Space Center, a Rosaviacosmos official told SPACE.com.
The official noted that Rosaviacosmos notified both ESA and NASA of Tito's flight back in November, but it was not until January that the two agencies officially asked the Russians replace the American investment manager with Reiter.
The Rosaviacosmos official and a Russian space medical expert familiar with the April 30 mission said Tito remains fit to fly even though he suffered from a bout of pneumonia earlier this year.
"It has been established that he can endure G-loads in Soyuz, while his stay at ISS would be too short to seriously influence his condition," the expert, who asked not to be named, told SPACE.com.
An expert with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies said NASA is trying to block Tito's flight to "show who is the boss at the station."
"They have an entire department trying to commercialize ISS, and they would not want anyone to bypass it -- including Russians, " the expert, who asked not to be named, told SPACE.com in a March 20 phone interview.
The Rosaviacosmos official said Russia "should stand firm" and launch Tito.
"Otherwise, all these potential customers will consider us to be unreliable partners and turn to NASA for space tourism and deprive us of revenue that we need," he said. Besides, he said Rosaviacosmos was on "rather solid ground" for sticking to its guns.
"After all, we presently account for some 50 percent of the ISS' structure, and it couldn't be permanently manned without our service module," he said. "NASA is not even sure what the U.S. segment will end up looking like now that they have these budget cuts looming."
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