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image source, Roscosmos
Russian cosmonauts in space show a flag supporting the war in Ukraine.
The gap between the United States and Russia reaches into space.
Moscow announced on Tuesday that it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024, one of the few joint collaboration projects that it had left with Washington and other nations and that it had maintained since 1998.
Yuri Borisov, the new head of Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, said his country will build a new station and in the meantime fulfill all its obligations to the ISS.
In a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Borisov stated that a decision had been made to abandon the project within two years.
“I think that by this time we will start putting together a Russian orbital station,” Borisov said, adding that the new station was his agency’s top priority.
“Good,” Putin replied.
In his meeting with the president, Borisov indicated that the new station will provide Russia with the necessary space services for modern life, for example, navigation and data transmission.
Impact
It is not immediately clear what the decision means for the future of the ISS.and a senior NASA official told Archyde.com that the US agency had not been officially informed of Russia’s plans.
Cooperation on the station between Russia and the US appeared relatively unscathed despite the war in Ukraine, with the two countries signing an agreement earlier this month to allow Russian cosmonauts to travel to the station on US spacecraft and back. .
However, bilateral relations between the two countries have deteriorated since Russia invaded Ukraine, with the Kremlin previously threatening to abandon the project due to Western sanctions against it.
image source, Archyde.com
The ISS, a joint project involving five space agencies, has been in orbit around the Earth for more than two decades and has been used to conduct thousands of scientific experiments.
It is approved to operate until 2024but the US wants to extend the project for another six years with the agreement of all partners.
The war has also affected other areas of cooperation between Russia and the West. The European Space Agency (ESA) has ended its collaboration with Roskosmos to launch a robot to Mars, and Russia has halted launches of its Soyuz spacecraft from an ESA launch site in French Guiana.
The Soviet Union and Russia have a long history of space exploration, and achievements like putting the first man in space in 1961 remain a source of national pride.
A troublesome decision
Analysis by Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent
The Russians have been making noise about their potential withdrawal from the ISS for some time, but it’s unclear how serious that decision really is.
They have talked about building their own outpost, the Russian Orbital Service Station, but it would require a financial commitment that the Russian government has not shown for the country’s existing space exploits.
Certainly, the Russian laboratories on the ISS are getting old, but the opinion of the engineers is that the modules can work until 2030.
image source, ESA/NASA
If Russia leaves, there is no doubt that it would be problematic. The station is designed in such a way that the partners depend on each other.
The US side of the ISS provides the power; the Russian side provides the propulsion and prevents the platform from falling to Earth.
If that propulsion capability is withdrawn, the US and its other partners – Europe, Japan and Canada – will need to devise other means of periodically propelling the station higher into the sky, something US robotic freighters could do.
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