Russia has increased its threat to leave the International Space Station (ISS) in response to sanctions imposed on the country as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos will give its overseas partners 12 months’ notice before departing, according to state media. After threatening to leave in early March, the Russian space agency Roscosmos has now announced that they will hand in their notice to their ISS partners, bringing an end to over 21 years of close collaboration in low-Earth orbit between Russia and the United States, European Union, Canada, and Japan.
“We are not obligated to speak about the decision publicly since it has already been decided.” “I can only say one thing: we will notify our partners a year in advance of the conclusion of operations on the ISS, as per our duties,” Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, told Russian official media. “Normal ties” between ISS partners could only be resumed following “the total and unconditional removal of illegitimate sanctions,” according to Rogozin.
Work on the ISS has already been halted as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. Roscosmos earlier stated that it would not collaborate with European partners on collaborative experiments aboard the Russian section of the International Space Station (ISS), but now plans to “perform them independently.” However, Russia cannot simply pack its belongings and return to Earth; it must adhere to a variety of practical and contractual rules before leaving the ISS.
The ISS is permitted to operate until at least 2024 under the current arrangement. While the US wants to keep the project operating until 2030, Roscosmos has said that it will depart the ISS in 2024, the earliest possible period. It’s unclear where Russia’s departure will leave the US’s plans to keep the project going until the end of the decade. Rogozin has previously made the daring claim that Russia might simply “jump ship” from the ISS, leading it to crash on Earth. That scenario is improbable, but it appears that Russia is taking its threat to depart the ISS seriously.
The Russian state-run news agency Novosti has released a weird and ominous video depicting the Russian component of the International Space Station (ISS) breaking off from the rest of the station. The International Space Station (ISS) is one of the outstanding instances of post-Cold War international collaboration. Following their mutual desire to build their own permanent Earth-orbiting stations, the United States and the Soviet Union (and later, Russia) agreed to collaborate to build the space station, which would include modules for Russian and American cosmonauts and astronauts, as well as Japan, Europe, and Canada.
