LE BOURGET (France) - THE European Space Agency said on Tuesday it was in talks to extend the life of the International Space Station and get seats for its astronauts on future flights to the orbital outpost.

'From a technical standpoint we are working on keeping the station alive at least up to 2025,' ESA's director of human spaceflight, Simonetta di Pippo, told reporters on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show.

The International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to be completed in 2010 after a 12-year assembly effort, leaving only five years before the facility, which has cost tens of billions of dollars, is scheduled to be scrapped.

ESA's director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain, said his agency was 'looking for new flight opportunities' to take European astronauts to and from the space station.

Europe has a corps of astronauts but does not have its own transporter to carry them. Until now, the astronauts have been taken aloft either by Russia's Soyuz rocket or the US space shuttle under the ISS contract.

However, those capacities will dwindle after 2010 when the shuttle is to be retired.

Crew transport to and from the ISS will depend entirely on the Soyuz until the United States introduces a rocket-and-capsule system, called Ares-Orion, to succeed the shuttle, which is unlikely to be before 2015.

Mr Dordain said ESA was discussing with Russia and the United States whether they would assign a seat on future missions to a European astronaut.

'I cannot tell you yet what will be the final scenario but we are working on certain tracks.

'We are discussing with not only the United States and Russia but also maybe the other partners, because Japan and Canada, they are like us, they are also missing some flight opportunities and maybe we can combine our efforts to buy an additional three seats,' he said. -- AFP