Russia assures that it will leave the International Space Station in 2024, but its North American counterpart claims to have no news about it.
The United States has received “no official notification” from Russia about its plans to leave the International Space Station ( ISS ) after 2024, an official with the US space agency ( NASA ) said on Tuesday.
NASA itself plans to retire the ISS – a symbol of post-Cold War unity – after 2030 and switch to working with commercial space stations , said Robyn Gatens, NASA director for the orbiting station, suggesting that Russia could be thinking about your own transition.
Asked if he wanted the end of relations between the United States and Russia in space matters, he replied: “No, not at all.”
“They have been good partners, as are all of our partners, and we want to stay together as a partnership to continue operating the space station throughout this decade,” he said.
Russia already plans to leave
For his part, Yury Borisov, the newly appointed head of Roscosmos, told Putin that “we will certainly fulfill all our obligations towards our partners” from the ISS, “but the decision was made to leave this station after 2024.”
“I think that by then we will start to create the Russian orbital station”, which will be “the main priority” of the national space program, Borissov continued.
Until now, space exploration was wwe stop one of the few areas where cooperation between Russia and the United States and its allies had not foundered on tensions over Ukraine and other disputes. (AFP)