NASA has revoked its invitation to Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin to visit the United States amid outrage from U.S. lawmakers who say the sanctioned Russian has no business being allowed into the country.
CNN:
"After receiving feedback from the Senate, we have rescinded our invitation to Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin," Megan Powers, the press secretary for NASA, told CNN late Friday.
Powers added, "Russia is a key partner for NASA, and we look forward to continuing our cooperation."
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement Saturday that he "had heard from numerous senators suggesting that this was not a good idea and I wanted to be accommodating to the interest of the senators."
"However we will continue our strong working relationship with Russia as it relates to the International Space Station and sending our astronauts into space," he said.
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Bridenstine had extended the invitation to his Russian counterpart after a visit to Russia and Kazakhstan in October that was hosted by Roscosmos, the NASA official said.
Russian officials reportedly are unhappy with the decision.
“It’s strange for us that colleagues at NASA are communicating with us through the media, not directly,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted a spokesman for the Roscosmos state space agency as saying Sunday.
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The United States banned entry to and froze the assets of then-Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin, along with other officials it blames for Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014. Rogozin oversaw Russia’s powerful arms industry before he was appointed to head Roscosmos last year.
Senator Frants Klintsevich was quoted by the Associated Press as accusing the “U.S. political establishment” for not intending to “change its Russophobic vector.”
State Duma deputy Yury Shvytkin called the quashed invite a “destructive step” that risks further souring U.S.-Russia relations, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Sunday.
Rogozin’s canceled visit also threatens a possible joint Russian-American mission to Venus, said the head of the Russia Academy of Science’s Space Research Institute, Lev Zelyony.
“Either the work continues, or this mission remains a study on paper,” Zelyony was quoted by TASS as saying on Sunday.
Russia Angered by NASA’s Revoked Invitation to U.S. (Moscow Times)
NASA rescinds invitation to Russian space agency chief to visit US after backlash (CNN)