NASA game planned contingencies for International Space station as Russian alliance continued- sources
NASA and the White House have since late last year quietly drawn up contingency plans for the International Space Station in light of tensions with Moscow that began building before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to nine people with knowledge of the plans.
The U.S. space agency's game planning shows how the U.S. is juggling its relationship with Russia, a crucial ally on the international space station project, which also involves such corporate names as Boeing, SpaceX and Northrup Grumman.
At risk is a two-decade old alliance NASA has sought to preserve as one of the few remaining links of civil cooperation between the two superpowers.
The plans drafted by U.S. officials laid out ways to pull all astronauts off the station if Russia were to abruptly leave, keep it running without crucial hardware provided by the Russian space agency, and potentially dispose of the orbital laboratory years earlier than planned, according to three of the sources, all of whom asked not to be identified.
While NASA and White House officials have acknowledged the existence of contingency plans before, they have avoided discussing them in public to avoid inflaming tensions with Russia. NASA officials instead stress the close relationship they have with Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.
"We are very committed, obviously, to us continuing this relationship," NASA's space operations chief Kathy Lueders said in an interview last week. "We need to make sure, though, that we do have plans. We're NASA. We always have contingencies."
The ISS was designed more than two decades ago to be technically interdependent between NASA and Roscosmos. NASA provides gyroscopes for the space station's balance and solar arrays for electricity, and
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
