NASA is working to keep space station going
There was a lot of consternation at the announcement – handwringing over the declaration by the newly appointed head of Russia’s space agency that Russia would depart the International Space Station partnership after 2024 and develop a space station of its own.
But since then, the reaction from NASA has been something resembling a yawn.
Russia has been NASA’s main partner on the space station for more than 20 years, but after years of frequent bluster from Russia, NASA officials have basically shrugged off the latest statement from Moscow and said they would continue to operate as if nothing has changed.
Because, in a way, nothing has. Russia has not formerly notified the space station partners that it is leaving, something it’s required to do a year before departing. Without that, everything else, the agency seems to say, is noise.
On Tuesday, Roscosmos, the
Russian space agency, published a lengthy interview with one of its top officials, who said the first segment of the station Russia would like to build wouldn’t launch until 2028, a date some industry officials think would delay any disengagement from ISS.
“We are staying the course,” NASA associate administrator Bob Cabana said Wednesday at a conference in Washington dedicated to the orbiting laboratory. “We are working to extend the International Space Station to 2030. It’s got good years left, and as you’ve heard today, it’s extremely busy right now, and we have much more we can do.”
Many space officials privately rolled their eyes at Russia’s latest announcement. Russia had threatened before to leave after the current agreement expires at the end of 2024 and had been doing that with more gusto ever since the invasion of Ukraine prompted more U.S. sanctions. And they pointed to the fact that Russia’s latest missive said they would leave sometime after 2024, which could be 2025, or 2026 – or later. There is no way to know.
It’s not like the Russia segment of the station could be disconnected from the American side with the push of a button. The station took years to assemble and would require a lot of work, and spacewalks, to separate the modules – if that were ever to happen.
Instead of moving toward disengagement, Russia’s recent actions have pointed in the opposite direction. Russia recently announced it would proceed with a series of crew swaps, sending American astronauts on Russian spacecraft, and Russian cosmonauts on American spacecraft.