MOSCOW (AFP) ??” The European Space Agency (ESA) is in negotiations with Russia to cast a European astronaut next year forward a long-term mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

MOSCOW (AFP) ??” The European Space Agency (ESA) is in negotiations with Russia to cast a European astronaut next year forward a long-term mission to the International Space Station (ISS), a top ESA official said in Moscow

"We are in negotiations with the Russian space agency forward the organisation of a long-term flight" of a European to the ISS, the ESA's manned flight director Joerg Feustel-Bueechl told journalists during a colloquy on European-Russian space cooperation.

It would be the first time a European astronaut exhausted more than a week or sum of two units at a time onboard the ISS, a 16-nation delineate in which the ESA is a major partner along with the United States, Russia, Canada and Japan.

The ESA wants its cosmonauts to have the right to take part in permanent missions, which generally last six months. The agency is in talks with Russia upon ...