An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut will spend a full year aboard the International Space Station in 2015-16, twice as long as current crews, to collect medical data on long-duration spaceflight that will help pave the way for eventual flights to deep space destinations, NASA said Friday.

Assigning two lab crew members to a yearlong flight also is expected to free up seats aboard Russian Soyuz ferry craft for two additional space tourists or representatives of other nations that might not otherwise fit into the normal space station crew rotation.

In their latest contract with NASA, the Russians charge more than $60 million a seat for Soyuz flights to and from the space station. While a space tourist presumably would pay less, the money would give the cash-strapped Russian program a welcome boost.

The Russians launched eight "spaceflight participants" to the station between 2001 and 2008, including one who flew twice. They paid between $20 million and $50 million per flight.

It is not yet known who will be assigned to the yearlong station flight, when they will be announced or who might fill the additional Soyuz seats. But Space Adventures, a company that has brokered past tourist visits to the space station, has scheduled a news conference Oct. 10 in Moscow with singer Sarah Brightman.

However that plays out, the astronaut and cosmonaut who will stay up for a year likely will launch in March 2015 aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft, sources said, accompanied by a Russian spacecraft commander who would stay aboard the lab for a normal six-month tour.

Under that scenario, the next Soyuz in the rotation, TMA-17M, would launch with a normal three-person station crew the following May. The Soyuz after that, TMA-18M, would take off that Fall with a Russian commander and two paying customers, sources said, either tourists, researchers representing nations not normally in the rotation or a combination of the two.

The spaceflight participants would spend about two weeks aboard the lab complex and return to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft with the same commander that ferried the long-duration crew to orbit the previous March. The long-duration crew members would return to Earth in March 2016 aboard the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft with the commander who ferried the commercial fliers to orbit.

Other scenarios are possible. The NASA statement provided no details on how the crew rotation might play out and there was no immediate word from the Russians. However it plays out, senior NASA managers believe the flight is crucial for plans to eventually send astronauts on missions to deep space targets ranging from nearby asteroids to Mars.

"In order for us to eventually move beyond low Earth orbit, we need to better understand how humans adapt to long-term spaceflight," Mike Suffredini, the space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement late Friday.

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U.S., Russia to launch first year-long space station flight