Russia Decides to Leave the International Space Station
Russia announced it's leaving the International Space Station to focus on its own space station project.
As The Washington Post(Opens in a new window) reports, the decision comes after Russia's space agency Roscomos appointed a new chief and former politician named Yury Borisov(Opens in a new window). He confirmed Russia's intention to leave the station, stating, "We will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made."
The news follows a stunt carried out by Russian cosmonauts onboard the ISS early this month which left NASA fuming. Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev, and Sergey Korsakov posed for photos with flags for the self-proclaimed republics located in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine. Those photos were then used for anti-Ukraine propaganda by Roscomos.
NASA and Roscosmos continuing to work together always seemed tenuous due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions the country currently faces. Deciding to start afresh with its own space station could prove difficult considering Russia's restricted access to Western technology. It's unlikely space station modules can be made to work using chips scavenged from dishwashers or a slow Chinese x86 CPU.
NASA intends to keep the ISS operational until 2030 before crashing it into the ocean in 2031. The challenge for the space agency now is to plan how to operate it without Russia's cooperation for the last six years of its life.
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