The International Space Station was conceived and built as a symbol of post-Cold War cooperation between America and Russia. And for thirty years, it’s been sailing peacefully in low-earth orbit. However, all that is about to change. Yuri Borisov, the new head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has finally put paid to his predecessor’s threats that Russia will leave the ISS after 2024 2028.
The reason for the strikeout is because a few days after announcing that it would no-fooling leave the ISS by 2024, Roscosmos is now saying it will stick around until 2028. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” said Borisov in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week. But that decision appears to have already changed according to a NASA official, which told Reuters that Roscosmos would like to keep flying astronauts to the ISS “until their own orbital outpost is built and operational.”
Whether Russia withdraws or not, the ISS is in no immediate danger. America and other nations — including Russia — have signed on to keep the Station aloft through 2024.
“The withdrawal will take some time,” said Dr. Pavel Luzin, a Russian military and space analyst. “Most likely, we need to interpret this as Russia’s refusal to extend the station’s operation up until 2030.”
Borisov took office just a few weeks ago, after Putin fired his predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, for poor performance. At about the same time, NASA and Roscosmos signed a seat-sharing agreement. It provided that astronauts and cosmonauts would swap seats on future Soyuz and SpaceX missions to the ISS. What will happen now is uncertain.
Can Russia Just Leave the ISS?
Well… sort of.
Earlier this year, we noted that it makes no sense for Russia to directly imperil the International Space Station. And that point still stands. However, Russia doesn’t have to renew its cooperation agreements beyond 2024 2028 or whenever the country manages to launch its own station. Even if Roscosmos doesn’t physically drop the ISS out of the sky, they can make everyone else’s day worse. For one, during his tenure as chief of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin repeatedly threatened to withdraw access to key ISS infrastructure. To date, we’ve used Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts back and forth from the ISS. Moreover, the Station uses the Progress spacecraft for altitude-keeping.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the cargo Dragon atop, lifts off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida on July 14, 2022, beginning the company’s 25th resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff occurred at 8:44 p.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Not long ago, it was the United States proposing to sunset the International Space Station. NASA organized its Commercial Resupply and Commercial Crew programs more than a decade ago, in order to diversify American access to LEO. Now, the Dragon-crewed vehicles make our reliance on Russian launch vehicles a little less absolute. Public and private, there are other options in the works.
“We are exploring options to mitigate any potential impacts on the I.S.S. beyond 2024 if in fact Russia withdraws,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
Russian Space Station: Coming Real Soon Now
According to The New York Times, Borisov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that withdrawing from the ISS consortium in 2024 would give Roscosmos time to figure out the logistics. “I think that by this time, we will begin to form the Russian orbital station,” he said. This latest delay seems to indicate Russia is a little less certain it can meet that timeline.
Borisov’s confidence hides some important truths. First, Roscosmos was in dire financial straits long before the Western sanctions. Russia will face great difficulty in sourcing and paying for complex electronics. And second — who does Roscosmos expect will pay it for launch services? Russia can’t just go running to China to redeem its behavior on the international stage. In fact, since last year, Roscosmos has been pleading with the Chinese Space Agency to let Russia send cosmonauts to the Chinese Space Station. But Russian spacecraft struggle to reach the Chinese station’s orbital inclination. And if the ISS and CSS are out of the question, where will the cosmonauts go?
“The prospect of cooperating with China is a fiction,” said Dr. Luzin. “The Chinese have looked at Russia as a prospective partner up until 2012 and have stopped since then. Today, Russia cannot offer anything to China in terms of space.”
Meanwhile, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement that “NASA is committed to the safe operation of the International Space Station through 2030.”
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