"We are in negotiations with the Russian space agency on 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 conference on European-Russian space cooperation.

It would be the first time a European astronaut spent more than a week or two at a time onboard the ISS, a 16-nation project 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 currently last six months. The agency is in talks with Russia on sending two Europeans in 2005 on Russian Soyuz rockets, Feustel-Bueechl said.

"After the flight of the Dutchman Andre Kuipers on April 19, we are planning for two flights (of Europeans), in April and in October 2005," he said.

Kuipers will spend less than two weeks at the station, returning with the US-Russian two person crew who are being replaced.

"The flight in April 2005 will probably be a short duration flight," the ESA official added, signalling that the European mission in October would be longer than usual.

The launch in April 2005 onboard the same Soyuz of a space tourist, US businessman Gregory Olsen, could create "some problems" for NASA, Feustel-Bueechl said.

"If a tourist and a European astronaut go at the same time to the ISS in April 2005, there won't be a place for a NASA astronaut," he cautioned.

Soyuz space craft have three places, one of which must be occupied by a Russian astronaut.

To solve the problem, the Russian space agency has suggested that permanent missions be extended to a year. The crew change would happen only once a year which would free up a place in the Soyuz in one out of every two flights.

SPACE.WIRE