All countries participating in the International Space Station (ISS) program have agreed to extend its operation beyond 2024. reported at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
“The United States, Japan, Canada and member states of the European Space Agency have confirmed that they will support the extension of the station’s operation until 2030, while Russia will support the extension of the station’s operation until 2028.” NASA announced.
American experts pledged to continue cooperation with partners on the station to ensure “an uninterrupted presence in low Earth orbit and a safe and orderly transition from the space station to commercial platforms in the future.”
“Extending our stay on this magnificent platform allows us to reap the fruits of over two decades of experimentation and continue to make even greater discoveries,” said Robin Gateens, Director of the ISS Division at NASA Headquarters.
The agency’s press release also states that ISS partners are committed to “expanding the operations of this unique platform.”
“Getting Old”
However, the International Space Station is scheduled to be removed from orbit in 2030-2031. This was announced by NASA head Bill Nelson, speaking at a hearing on the Science, Space and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives.
“We’re going to get him out of orbit, he’s getting old. “We’re going to get it out of orbit in 2030-2031,” Nelson said.
According to the head of NASA, in the future private companies will work in orbit. “Therefore, we are now giving contracts to several commercial companies to build commercial space stations,” he added.
Previously, NASA had already expressed confidence that the private sector had sufficient technical and financial capacity to create an alternative to the ISS.
“We look forward to sharing our lessons learned and our experiences with the private sector to help them develop safe, reliable and cost-effective places in space,” said Phil McAlister, Director of Private Industry Relations at the Space Agency.
According to NASA’s plan, presented in February 2022, the station will begin its slow descent in January 2031 and enter the atmosphere, and its debris will fall into the uninhabited part of the Pacific Ocean in the Point Nemo region.
Russia will not stay stationed until 2030
In July 2022, Moscow announced its intention to withdraw from the project after 2024, but the exact date has not been set. Later, Roskosmos announced that they would not be in a hurry to exit the project. On April 12, 2023, the head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced that Russia’s participation in the operation of the station was extended until 2028.
According to Borisov, the end of the operation of the Russian division of the ISS should be synchronized with the start of the deployment of the new Russian orbital station. Borisov claims that the Russian analogue of the ISS will be built by 2032, the preliminary estimate of its construction is 600 billion rubles.
“The draft project will be ready this summer… The new orbit, the new radiation environment will allow us to go deeper and master the technologies that will be needed for deep space, particularly the lunar program,” he said. Roscosmos
In turn, Vladimir Kozhevnikov, chief designer of the Russian Orbital Station, assured that the creation of the Russian analogue of the ISS will require less money than the creation and operation of the International Space Station. At the same time, he said it’s too early to talk about the amount that will be needed to build the station.
The ISS has been in orbit since November 20, 1998. The station, which has been visited by 266 people from 20 countries since its opening, is used as a multi-purpose research facility.
The station is multi-module and weighs about 435 tons (with ships with berths, the weight can reach 470 tons). 14 countries participate in the ISS work: Russia, Canada, USA, Japan and 10 member countries of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, France, Switzerland, Sweden).