Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station, bringing an end to a 24-year partnership with the United States
Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station, bringing an end to a 24-year partnership with the United States
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Russia’s new space director said on Tuesday that his country will depart from the International Space Station in 2024, but senior NASA officials said Moscow has not formally communicated its intention to sever its two-decade-old orbital relationship with the US.

While increased tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have cast doubt on future American-Russian space cooperation, the announcement by Yuri Borisov, Russia’s recently appointed director-general of the space organisation Roscosmos, came as a surprise.

Less than two weeks ago, the two former Cold War foes inked a crew exchange agreement that will allow US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts to share future trips to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson made a statement reiterating the US commitment to maintaining the ISS operational until 2030, noting that the space agency “is cooperating with our partners.”

“NASA has not been made aware of any of our partners’ decisions, but we are continuing to build future capabilities to ensure our major presence in low-Earth orbit,” he said.

The International Space Station (ISS) was launched in 1998 and has been continuously manned since November 2000 under a US-Russian partnership that also includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries.

“Of course, we will fulfil all of our responsibilities to our partners,” Borisov assured Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

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NASA’s ISS director, Robyn Gatens, stated that her Russian counterparts have not conveyed any such intent, as required by the international agreement on the orbiting research platform.

“Nothing formal yet,” Gatens stated during an interview at the International Space Station (ISS) conference in Washington. “Nothing official has been received.”

Moscow, according to White House spokesman Karine Jean-Peters, “has not formally alerted the United States of their plan to withdraw from the ISS.”

“We’re looking into ways to lessen the potential repercussions on the ISS after 2024 if Russia withdraws,” she said in a press conference.

Restricted Space Relations

The space station arose in part from a foreign policy endeavour to repair American-Russian relations following the demise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War antagonism that fueled the original US-Soviet space race.

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The ISS arrangement, which has seen several strains over the years, has stood as one of the final ties of civil collaboration as Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine drove relations between Washington and Moscow to a new post-Cold War low.

NASA and Roscosmos had been in talks to extend Russia’s involvement in the ISS until 2030. The White House this year approved NASA’s plans to keep the ISS operational until then.

Officials from NASA previously stated that bilateral cooperation aboard the space station would continue.

Borisov’s words on Tuesday followed a trend similar to those of his predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, who, in contrast to official conversations between NASA and Roscosmos, would periodically telegraph an intention to depart from the ISS during his tenure.

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When asked for more information on Russia’s space station plans, a Roscosmos spokesperson directed Reuters to Borisov’s comments, without indicating whether they represented the agency’s official position.

The US and Russian components of the International Space Station, which cover the size of a football field and orbit 250 miles (400 kilometres) above Earth, were purposefully designed to be interwoven and technically interdependent.

While US gyroscopes manage the ISS’s orientation in space on a daily basis, and US solar arrays supplement power supplies to the Russian module, the Russian module provides propulsion to keep the station in orbit.

“You can’t have an amicable divorce,” said Garrett Reisman, a retired NASA astronaut and current professor of astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California, in an interview with Reuters. “We’re kind of bonded.”

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Former Russian space chief Rogozin earlier stated that Russia would not agree to extend its ISS mission beyond 2024 unless the US lifted sanctions against two Russian enterprises blacklisted for alleged military links. On July 15, Putin fired Rogozin and replaced him with Borisov, a former deputy prime minister and defence minister.