Soyuz

On the other hand, Russia’s Luna-25 escaped the Earth’s gravity quickly riding a powerful Soyuz rocket.

Nasa retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011, leaving the agency reliant on Russia's Soyuz craft to get to and from the ISS, and having two American companies to perform the missions has been a key goal for some time.

Under a contract between Nasa and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, three-seat Russian Soyuz spacecraft carry one Nasa astronaut on each flight to the ISS and a cosmonaut flies on each four-seat Dragon.

When their space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, the US spent a decade relying solely on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to transport its crew and cargo - a situation Nasa admitted was far from ideal.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft also services the station and carries American astronauts.