They ignite their engines to move the station to a higher orbit. The International Space Station needs occasional boosts to keep it in orbit, and Russia’s visiting spacecraft and Zvezda Service Module have been crucial to keeping it aloft. Dreier also said he wouldn’t be surprised if Russia stayed for the entire life of the space station.īut if Russia does leave in 2028, that could prompt the other nations to leave earlier than desired, said John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute. He said Russia likely will cling to the space station for as long as NASA funds it. It’s a five-year increment traditionally used for term extensions. Zak believes the extension to 2028 is mostly bureaucratic. “Not to mention, the Russian federal budget is possibly heading toward collapse,” he said, “if not this year, then the next, because the war in Ukraine eats up billions.” Russia would have to revive contractors and technologies that are long gone, and international sanctions restrict the country’s access to space components. Zak said it would be very difficult for Russia to build its own space station. And escaping the full force of Earth’s gravity can be useful for research as microgravity allows smaller forces, processes and phenomena to be seen. Its location in low-Earth orbit provides a useful vantage for examining Earth’s seas and lands. Many of these technologies have benefits on Earth, too. It’s also a proving ground for technologies that will help the agency explore the moon and Mars. The space station allows NASA to observe how the human body behaves during long periods in space, which will be important as astronauts travel farther from home. It had previously been approved through 2024. Congress last year allowed NASA to extend the station’s life through 2030 when it passed the NASA Authorization Act of 2022. The station is operated by five space agencies from 15 countries, with the U.S. The first component of the International Space Station launched in 1998, and the platform has been continuously occupied by humans since 2000. “I wrote continuously, from day one, that they have nowhere to go and they need ISS much more than NASA does.” “Their threats to leave the ISS have always been nothing but propaganda and bluff,” said Anatoly Zak, publisher of, a website focused on the Russian space industry. And right now, the International Space Station is the only destination for its cosmonauts. However, Borisov has since walked back his rhetoric on leaving the station. His replacement, Yuri Borisov, later said Russia would withdraw from ISS after 2024 to focus on its own orbiting platform. One tweet, translated into English, highlighted Russia’s role in keeping the space station in orbit around the Earth: “If you block the cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and fall on the U.S. Such threats were particularly sharp when Dmitry Rogozin led Russia’s space agency. Rogozin wrote a series of antagonistic tweets when other countries reprimanded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It does allow them to maintain the threat of exiting the partnership early, even if only by a few years.” “But notably, it only goes until 2028 - not 2030 as outlined by the U.S. “It puts to bed the worst near-term fears that Russia would abandon the ISS partnership,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a nonprofit that seeks to get more people engaged with space. Thursday’s announcement provides several more years of stability in Earth’s orbit. This news was largely expected - and the countries had been individually announcing their plans to extend operations on the station - but Russia posed some concern as its officials had made worrisome comments in the past year. RELATED: International Space Station will plummet into the Pacific at end of its mission
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