The decision to “leave the station after 2024” had been made, Borissov said during a televised meeting with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. “I think at that point we will start building a Russian space station,” he added. This is the “top priority” of the national space program. “Good,” Putin replied.
After the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, the West had imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, which also affected the country’s space industry. However, the collaboration continued on the ISS. The previous Vice Prime Minister Borissov took over the management of Roskosmos in mid-July as the successor to the head of the authority Dmitry Rogozin.
The ISS, which has been orbiting the earth since 1998, is a joint project of the USA, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia. It is divided into a Russian and a US segment. The operation of the ISS was originally planned until 2024, but the US space agency Nasa does not want to decommission it until 2030.
According to the United States, it was not informed of Moscow’s decision. NASA has not yet received an “official statement” from Russia, said NASA representative Robyn Gatens, who is responsible for the ISS. Washington does not support a withdrawal of the Russians from the ISS: “They were good partners, like all our partners, and we want to continue the partnership in order to continue the operation of the space station until the end of the decade.”
According to observers, Russia’s departure from the ISS will spell a setback for the country’s space sector. Space expert Vitaly Jegorov said he was assuming there would be a “pause of several years” for manned flights. Russia is far from having its own infrastructure in orbit. “There will not be a Russian space station in 2024, nor in 2025, nor in 2026.” The construction of such an outpost in space would take “at least ten years, even with the most generous funding”.
Roskosmos boss Borisov admitted that the Russian space industry is in a “difficult situation”. He will strive to “raise the bar” and provide the Russian economy with space-related services such as navigation, communications and data transmission.
With the first manned space flight in 1961 and the launch of the first satellite a few years earlier, the Soviet space program had achieved great success. In recent years, however, the Russian space agency has suffered a series of setbacks. Among other things, she was troubled by corruption scandals and the loss of satellites and other spacecraft.