Russia’s new space chief announced that his country plans to withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and build its own station instead.
“The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” said Yuri Borisov, the chief of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
The move was decided during a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Yuri Borisov, the newly-appointed Director-General of Russia’s space agency, the Roscosmos, reported the Russina media.
Borisov, who replaced forerunner Dmitry Rogozin after he was personally removed as head of Roscosmos by Putin earlier this month, told the President during the meeting that the country would exit the ISS and go solo to focus on building its own space station eventually “raising the bar” in the space industry.
“Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made,” Yuri Borisov said, according to the state media.
The decision follows the clash between Moscow and the West over the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and casts new doubt over the future of global space collaboration.
Russia has intimated that it sees its future as primarily a cooperative effort with the Chinese space program rather than NASA, its main partner for the last 25 years.
NASA’s to Continue Station Operations
On the other hand, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday afternoon that the agency plans to continue operating the orbiting outpost through the end of the decade.
“NASA is committed to the safe operation of the International Space Station through 2030, and is coordinating with our partners,” Nelson said in a statement. “NASA has not been made aware of decisions from any of the partners, though we are continuing to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit.”
International cooperation on the station will continue between NASA, Canada’s CSA space agencies, Europe’s ESA, and Japan’s JAXA.