Russia backtracked on its decision to withdraw troops. NASAX international space station (ISS) by 2024, saying that it will now keep its astronauts in an orbital laboratory until their own orbital outpost is built, but that will not happen before 2028.
The future national station will be called the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), but will operate in a completely different way than the ISS, in particular, it will not be constantly busy.
Vladimir Solovyov, flight director of the Russian segment of the space station, said that Russia should remain on the station until the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) is launched.
“Of course, we need to continue operating the ISS until we create a more or less tangible backlog for ROSS,” Solovyov said.
“We must take into account that if we stop manned flights for several years, then it will be very difficult to restore what has been achieved.”
Scroll down for video
Russia has announced that it will keep its cosmonauts on NASA’s International Space Station until the completion of its own station, which will happen no earlier than 2028. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveev and Sergei Korsakov, who are currently on the ship
News of Russia’s withdrawal hit the headlines on Tuesday morning, but the only ones in the dark seemed to be NASA.
Both astronauts on the ISS and crew members on Earth said they have “no official word” of the plans, and “at the moment everyone is working together” on the station, conducting research and maintaining the orbiting laboratory.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told DailyMail.com following Tuesday’s split news in a statement: “NASA has not been informed of either partner’s decisions, although we continue to build future capabilities to ensure our primary presence in low Earth orbit.”
Vladimir Solovyov (left), flight director of the Russian segment of the space station, said that Russia should remain on the station until the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) is launched.
Russia’s announcement, however, said it would exit the ISS “after 2024” to build its own counterpart – direct words that came from the newly appointed head of state space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov.
“I think by that time we will start assembling the Russian orbital station,” Borisov said at a meeting with Insertaccording to a report from Moscow Timescalling the space program a top “priority”.
“Of course, we will fulfill all obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov added.
Citing an unnamed industry source, Interfax said the new Russian space station would cost $6 billion.
However, ROSS doesn’t take a single page from NASA’s blueprint when it comes to its operations.
Astronauts will spend only two months on the ship and launch them into space only when necessary, Futurism reports.
According to Solovyov, the docking station of the Nauka module, which docked with the International Space Station last year.
The first to be built is the Science and Energy Module, as well as a docking module with six stations for landing capsules with astronauts.
The ISS, launched in 1998 by the Russian and US space agencies, has been a rare area of cooperation between Moscow and Washington as relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years.
Russia shared details of its future station, noting the Nauka module docking module (pictured), which docked with the International Space Station last year.
The ISS, launched in 1998 by the Russian and US space agencies, has been a rare area of cooperation between Moscow and Washington as relations have deteriorated sharply in recent years.
On June 23, 1994, Vice President Gore announced that he and Viktor Chernomyrdin, then Prime Minister, had agreed to a contract that would allocate $400 million to the ShuttleMir project. This project was aimed at creating a large and livable science laboratory in space, and therefore the two countries worked together to build the ISS.
Earlier this month, NASA was forced to take sides when three astronauts displayed anti-Ukrainian propaganda aboard the ISS and it did not side with Russia.
Three cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveev and Sergei Korsakov shared a photo of them holding the flags of the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic, two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine that are recognized as independent states only by Moscow and Syria.
They argued that the capture of the region was “a day of liberation to be celebrated both on Earth and in space.”
The move led NASA to rebuke Russia for using the ISS “for political purposes to support the war against Ukraine.”
Spokeswoman Jackie McGuinness added that this was “fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s core function among its 15 participating countries, which is to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes.”
EXPLANATION: A 100 BILLION INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION IS 250 MILES ABOVE THE EARTH
The International Space Station (ISS) is a $100 billion (£80 billion) science and engineering lab located 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth.
Since November 2000, it has been constantly staffed with interchangeable crews of cosmonauts and cosmonauts.
The crews came mainly from the US and Russia, but astronauts were also sent by the Japanese space agency JAXA and the European space agency ESA.
The International Space Station has been in continuous use for over 20 years and has been expanded with many new modules and system upgrades.
Research conducted aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low gravity or oxygen.
ISS research focuses on human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy, and meteorology.
The US space agency, NASA, spends about $3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year on the space station program, with the remaining funding coming from international partners including Europe, Russia and Japan.
So far, 244 people from 19 countries have visited the station, including eight private individuals who have spent up to $50 million on their visit.
There is ongoing debate about the future of the station after 2025, when part of the original design is thought to reach “end of life”.
Russia, the station’s main partner, plans to launch its own orbital platform around the same time, and private firm Axiom Space plans to simultaneously send its own modules to the station for purely commercial use.
NASA, ESA, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are working together to build a space station in orbit around the Moon, while Russia and China are working on a similar project that will also include a surface base.
