According to news reports, Russia will pull out of the International Space Station as soon as two years from now because of the sanctions imposed on it after its invasion of Ukraine.
The director-general of the federal Roscosmos space agency told the state-owned Rossiya-24 TV channel on Saturday that they were not obliged to talk about the decision publicly.
Although he affirmed it would give at least a year's notice, he didn't say when Russia's involvement in the project would end.
Russian space analysts have noted that Russia never agreed to extend its involvement in the International Space Station beyond the year 2024.
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A politician with close ties to the Russian president has a history of making statements.
The partnership between NASA and Roscosmos that keeps the space station is at risk if international sanctions are imposed on Russia over the Ukrainian invasion.
He said last month that normal relations between the partners could only be restored after the lifting of illegal sanctions.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine could affect international science.
The first modules of the International Space Station were launched in 1998 and are expected to last just 15 years.
The mission of the space station has been extended, despite the fact that maintenance problems on the Russian half of the station have increased in recent years.
The US and Russia cooperated on the last stages of the Mir space station in the 1990s, which led to the creation of the International Space Station.
The U.S. has provided life support for up to 10 people who lived on the International Space Station at any one time, and Russia has been responsible for keeping the space station in the air.
The advent of passenger-carrying spaceships like the SpaceX Dragon means that Russia no longer controls access to the International Space Station.
NASA is testing its ability to keep the International Space Station in the air with blasts from the engines of the Cygnus cargo ship, which is manufactured and launched by the US.
Russia could soon give notice and start pulling out of the International Space Station project, according to comments by the Russian official.
Live Science sister site Space.com reported that activities on the space station have been normal since he made his initial comments.
According to the report, the comments that Rogozin made a day earlier suggested that a decision on the fate of the project was not yet made.
He told the news agency in an interview on Friday, April 29 that a decision about the future of the International Space Station will depend on the situation in Russia.
He said that the Russian government and President Putin had received proposals for cooperation on the ISS project.
In a story on the same day, it was said that Russia would begin to test one-orbit flights to the International Space Station by the year 2024.
That schedule, too, doesn't seem to fit well with assertions that the demise of Russia's involvement in the ISS project is imminent.
According to Space.com, Russia has advanced plans to build a successor space station.
The first module could cost at least $5 billion and go into space as early as 2025.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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