Russia Says It Is Leaving ISS After 2024
Russia says they're done with ISS in 2024. Let's see what they say next week. They have no money for their own station, China doesn't need them, and they are currently an international pariah due to the #Ukraine invasion – hardly a strong bargaining position. Just sayin' #ISSRDC pic.twitter.com/qPKfOoasTg
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) July 26, 2022
Russia To Quit International Space Station “After 2024”, NDTV
“I think that by this time we will start putting together a Russian orbital station,” Borisov added, calling it the space programme’s main “priority”. “Good,” Putin replied in comments released by the Kremlin.
Russia to drop out of International Space Station after 2024
“Russia will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief said Tuesday amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the fighting in Ukraine. Yuri Borisov, who was appointed this month to lead the state space agency, Roscosmos, said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia will fulfill its obligations to its partners before it leaves the project. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said, adding: “I think that by that time we will start forming a Russian orbiting station.”
Russia says it will quit International Space Station by 2024, Guardian
“A senior Nasa official told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia has not communicated its intent to withdraw from the ISS.”
Thanks to God – it will happen at last! It’s such a shame to cooperate with bloody murderers of women and children. The soulless West was hesitant to take this step, despite of outright barbarism of russians in Ukraine (and not only there, of course). And with such principles we (the West) are going to populate the other planets and the stellar worlds? An indelible shame on humanity.
Once a Greek philosopher was asked why he hated everyone? “I hate bad people because they do evil, and I hate good people because they allow bad people to do this evil.”
I see this as a public show (approved in advance) by the new guy to show how tough he is on the West. It’s the hand waving that’s required of everyone to show fealty to Putin and his war on Ukraine. Note the embedded proviso in his words, claiming they’ll have their own station by 2024. They won’t, of course, and along the way they’ll use that as a basis for walking back Borisov’s words of today. It took them 20+ years to get Nauka, their newly-launched science module, off the ground. Even then, they don’t have enough work to do to keep their current equipment busy. Cosmonaut Aleksandr Skvortsov recently quit because there’s nothing for them to do on orbit. Does anyone seriously think they’ll have a bustling new station in two years, with 100s of millions of dollars wasted daily in Ukraine? Of course not. Watch this space. In 2025, Russia will still be using ISS.
so how quickly does that mean everyone needs to start deorbiting their components? does pulling out in 2024 mean that starts the disassembly and deorbit or they want their parts in the pacific by 2024?
It means there’s a new guy in charge of Roscosmos who needs to cover himself and show how he’s tough on the West. For ISS, it means nothing.
If you look at the phrasing carefully, Russia didn’t actually say they would stop participating in 2024. They said they would not extend their commitment (the formal agreement with NASA/ESA/JAXA/CSA) when it expires in 2024. Which just means they can choose to end support at any time after 2024. Or they could choose to choose to continue supporting ISS without a formal commitment.
That does mean NASA has to start seriously working on their options, since they will have to do something at some unspecified time after 2024. Those options are basically to find a way to replace the Russian segment (possible but expensive and potentially difficult on short notice) or deorbit ISS. For a deorbit, they could probably put a plan in place and ready to initiate on perhaps six months notice.
It also means NASA has to think about the commercial crew and cargo contracts, since they’ve currently signed contracts for ISS support through 2030. Also their work with Axiom on Axiom’s commercial station. That would have the initial module launched in 2024 and docked with ISS, with additional modules launched between 2024 and 2030, eventually allowing it to detach from ISS and become an independent space station. Obviously, that schedule is now in serious question.
Bye Felicia…
ISS is basically gone before the end of the decade anyways, so it’s fine. I doubt they’ll be putting up their own space station – it’s basically all they can do just to do their existing robotic spaceflight launches and the Soyuz launches. They’d have to put a lot more money into their space program.
That money is presently going by the truckload into buying single-use rockets, but not the sort that travel to orbit…
You can bet that the backdoor Clinton Cash-style “aid”/funding that paid for Russia’s involvement is drying up. That is the only reason the SOB is pulling out, and if that backdoor “aid”/funding pipeline is eliminated that is a good thing. Period.
I would expect that the next shoe to drop will be the announcement of a Roscosmos – China National Space Agency collaboration on an augmented CNSA space station already being deployed. This would be a natural precursor to their joint “International Lunar Research Station” (ILRS) that was announced in summery 2021…
The Chinese don’t want to work with Russia (as they have nothing to offer) and Tiangong is not in an orbit that can be reached from Russian launch facilities.
This would not be so damning if Blue Origin and other companies would kick into high gear…
We may have to depend on SpaceX indefinitely.
“After 2024” Hmmm…OK. Well, there *is* their history of following through on their pronouncements. And I’m sure China would welcome them with open arms. Regardless, they have plenty of money to do it on their own. /s
We should certainly not beg them to stay. By all means let us cooperate with anybody – including China – but let us not again put another nation on a critical path for progress.
It’s important to remember that Yeltsin was president when the founding agreement was signed in early 1998. Russia was a very different place then and headed in a very different direction.