Will Russia remain or will it leave?
The country announced today that it will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024. The space community is divided about how serious the threat is.
John Logsdon, a space historian and policy analyst at George Washington University, told Space.com that the Russian decision to pull out of the station by 2024 is becoming stronger.
Russia says it will leave the space station.
He said that the announcement was a statement of intent by Russia to withdraw from the partnership with the International Space Station and to put its personnel and financial resources into developing an independent space station.
According to Logsdon, the remaining space station partners have been working on contingency plans for a long time. If they haven't done anything, that would be a betrayal.
NASA does not yet have a formal withdrawal notice from Russia's federal space agency, according to the agency's administrator.
Nelson said in an email that NASA is committed to the safe operation of the International Space Station through the year 2030. NASA has not been made aware of any decisions from any of the partners.
"We haven't received any official word from the partner as to the news today," said the director of NASA's International Space Station.
She thought that Russia might be planning for a future space station like NASA did with their commercial space station efforts. Gatens thinks the Russians are thinking about what's next for them.
The White House plans to extend the operations of the International Space Station to 2030. A section on the extension of the International Space Station is included in a bill before Congress, according to previous SpaceNews reports.
The extension at the conference was praised by the NASA program manager. "We're going to go to the end of the century," Montalbano said. You're wrong if you think there is a different plan. We will go to 2030.
Montalbano was in Moscow last week as part of a seat swap agreement that will allow Russian cosmonauts to fly on American commercial vehicles.
Europe, Japan and Canada are all in favor of the proposed extension, but Russia is not. It's a big deal in terms of how the space station is built. The US and Russian sides of the International Space Station are interdependent, according to NASA.
NASA explained in an explainer that the space station can't be broken apart. The US and Russian segments of the station are unable to operate on their own due to the interdependence of the segments.
It's not clear how the ISS would shift operations after a Russian departure. Logsdon said that it would be difficult for other partners to take over from the ground control segment because of the instructions from Moscow. The first US boost of the space station was performed by a private American spaceship. The spaceships are not as powerful as the current system.
The facility will need to be used in the event of a Russian withdrawal. Logsdon said that Russia would not want exclusive use of its segment without the partnership. Logsdon said that the discussion needs to include how the other countries might take over Russia's segment.
Logsdon said that acting to the announcement should be collaborative. Russia is one of the two principals of the International Space Station.
The "after 2024" language was so vague that it meant little to Anatoly Zak. Zak said "'After 2024' can mean any date." As long as the Zvezda service module keeps functioning, NASA has nothing to worry about.
A spokesman for The Planetary Society compared the current discussion about Russia's status to the debate about water on Mars. This story has been told many times before. Color me skeptical of any immediate changes.
The last director of the space agency made a lot of threats about leaving the partnership.
After months of controversial public statements, including some related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the former head of Roscosmos was dismissed. The flags of two Russian-backed territories in eastern Ukraine were flown by the cosmonauts of the International Space Station.
Logsdon said the withdrawal was just one more step in relation to a fraught relationship. TheUkraine invasion doesn't help.
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