Russia Not Leaving International Space Station Yet, Roscosmos Will Still Work With NASA Until 2028

Yuri Borisov, the new Roscosmos head, reportedly told Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that the country will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) partnership after 2024, the Russian state news site TASS reported.

He said that the Russian space agency will continue its collaboration within the framework of international cooperation at the ISS until that time, but its decision to leave is already final.

Russia is Staying in the ISS At Least Until 2028 When Its Own Space Station is Ready Unsplash/NASA

Russia Informs NASA It Will Stay in ISS Until 2028

After Roscosmos insinuated leaving the ISS, they clarified that they only hoped to transition focus to a new space station it was developing called the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS). But NASA said that they have not received official word from them, and NASA administrator Bill Nelson said they are unaware of any of their partners in the ISS.

However, according to Reuters, Roscosmos officials had some communications with NASA on the day they announced the possibility of leaving the ISS program. The news outlet reported that Roscosmos informed the American space agency that it planned to stay involved in the ISS until ROSS would be up and running in 2028.

"We're not getting any indication at any working level that anything's changed," NASA's associate administrator for space operations Kathy Leuders told Reuters.

NASA and Roscosmos are the two space agencies in the ISS and both entities operate a vehicle that maintains the continuous presence of humans in low-Earth orbit. However, the continuous tensions between the two countries due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine have prompted concerns about the future of the ISS agreement.

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What We Know So Far About ROSS

In an interview with Vladimir Solovyov, the flight director of the Russian portion of the ISS, he gave more details on the plans of Roscosmos for ROSS.

According to a Twitter thread of the story, ROSS will be built in two phases. The first one will start in 2028 and is believed to be an important step to continue operating the Russian portion of the ISS, so there will be no gap in crewed missions.

However, former Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin added that there might be an overlap between the ISS and Russia's new space station.

Nonetheless, Russia will become the second country to have an active space station after China launched its own space station called Tiangong Space Station in 2021. More so, the ISS is already expected to retire by the 2030s, which gives Russia time to build ROSS and make it operational.

For now, there is no need to panic about the plans of NASA for the ISS until 2030, but it appears that Rosccosmos will no longer be on board for most of that time.