Russia is withdrawing from the International Space Station. He intends to build his own orbital station.

 

The recently appointed new head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, announced that Russia has decided to abandon its participation in the International Space Station (ISS) project after 2024. As he announced, Moscow currently intends to focus on building its own orbital station.

fot. NASA

This is the end of the International Space Station as we know it. The new head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, has confirmed that Russia will no longer be part of the ISS after 2024. He also added that Russia is giving up the project in order to focus on building its own orbital station.

Russia is leaving the ISS
- Of course, we will fulfill all obligations towards our partners, but the decision to withdraw from this station after 2024 has been made — said Borisov during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think we’ll start building our own Russian orbital station by then,” he added, calling it the main priority of the national space program.

At the beginning of this year, the ISS mission was extended until 2030. However, Russia had previously considered withdrawing from the project. The former head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, known for his controversial statements, has spoken about it many times. Like Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine and subsequent sanctions imposed on that country by many countries involved in the ISS, led to tensions between Roscosmos and other project partners, which, it turns out, accelerated Russia’s decision.

Experts said Russia’s departure from the International Space Station will affect the country’s space sector and will deal a serious blow to the manned flight program. Moscow does not have much to blackmail partners participating in the ISS project. Until recently, Russian Soyuz rockets were the only way to reach orbit until Elon Musk’s SpaceX began making its flights in 2020.

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

What will happen to the station?
The entire structure is aging and without major refurbishment, the long-term future of the station is in question. Another issue that needs to be resolved is how the station will be kept in the correct orbit, and Roscosmos is responsible for this.

Roscosmos and NASA have agreed to continue to provide flights to US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard their launch rockets — Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon.

“This is unfortunate given the critical scientific work being done at the ISS and the valuable professional collaboration of our space agencies over the years,” said US State Department spokesman Ned Price. In turn, NASA administrator Bill Nelson admitted that the agency “was not informed about the decisions of any of the partners.”

What is Russia going to build?
Russia is heavily dependent on imports of everything from manufacturing equipment to consumer goods, and the effects of Western sanctions are expected to wreak havoc on the country’s economy in the long run. According to specialists, the construction of a modern orbital station cannot be successful in a country covered by sanctions. Even if Russia builds an orbital station, it will be a return to the 1980s.

Space analyst Vitaly Yegorov admitted that it is almost impossible to build a new orbital station from scratch in a few years. — Neither in 2024, nor in 2025, nor in 2026 will there be a Russian orbital station, said Yegorov AFP. He added that creating a fully-fledged space station would take at least a decade and would require “the most generous funding”. He also admitted that Russia’s departure from the ISS meant that Moscow would have to suspend its manned flight program “for several years” or even “indefinitely”.

Photo by Shot by Cerqueira on Unsplash

ISS
The International Space Station is the largest and most complex international construction project in space. Its story began in 1998 in the steppes of Kazakhstan. It was from the cosmodrome there, at the top of the Proton rocket, that the first element of the future station was launched — the Russian Zarja module.

Currently, the ISS is the only fully functioning laboratory in space to conduct experiments and research in a weightless condition.

The ISS has experienced several potentially dangerous incidents recently. In July last year, the pressure dropped in the Zwiezda service module, which provides accommodation for crew members and operates the station’s life support systems. A month later, microcracks were detected in the Zarja module, which resulted in a slow but continuous leak of air. Experts indicate that the ISS is starting to show its age and that after 2025 there may be an “avalanche” of events related to broken equipment.

The facility, roughly the length of a soccer field, is divided into two main areas, one of which is controlled by Russia and the other by the United States and other nations. At present, it is not yet known what will need to be changed on the Russian side of the complex for the space station to function safely after Moscow’s departure.

Source: AFP, Science Alert,