South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
NASA to extend space station to 2030
Russia may not pull out so quickly, new head of space agency says
While Congress was passing a bill to support U.S. production of semiconductors on Thursday, it also gave the first authorization act for NASA in five years that included the thumbs up to keep the International Space Station running until 2030.
Meanwhile, the head of the Russian space agency indicated the agency has not committed to an exact date to leave the ISS after reports the nation would depart the station after 2024.
President Biden has indicated he would sign the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022, which included the NASA authorization act. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson applauded his former colleagues in Congress for the move.
“This act shows continued bipartisan support of NASA’s many missions, including our Moon to Mars approach, as well extension of U.S. participation in the International Space Station to 2030,” Nelson said.
The ISS is a combined effort of the U.S., Canada, Japan, European Space Agency and Russia, and has had continuous human presence on board since November 2000. Before this authorization act, the U.S. commitment to maintain the station only ran through 2024.
But NASA has been pushing to extend the life of the station until 2030 as part of its plan to transition low-Earth-orbit needs to commercial providers. Part of that is allowing Axiom Space to use the ISS as a proving ground for modules
to be built off the station beginning in 2024.
In time, those modules would detach to become their own Axiom Station as the rest of the ISS was decommissioned. NASA also has contracts for two more commercial stations in the works — Starlab from Lockheed Martin, Nanoracks and Voyager Space; and Orbital Reef from Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Boeing and others — but neither likely would be in business until 2027 at the earliest.
Russian involvement in extending ISS’s mission beyond 2024, though, have been in question, especially since the country’s
invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions by the U.S. and other countries that have throttled its economy. The U.S. relies heavily on Russia to keep the station in orbit, with most repositioning duties falling to the Russians Progress modules that can use thrusters to keep the station at the right altitude and speed.
Earlier this week, new head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov announced in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made.”
On Friday, though, Borisov indicated during a televised appearance that an exact date of departing the
ISS has not been decided, and that it would depend on the condition of the space station.
Borisov’s predecessor as Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, said last month that Moscow could take part in negotiations about a possible extension of the station’s operations only if the U.S. lifted its sanctions against Russian space industries.
Borisov insisted his agency’s decision wasn’t related to politics. “There are no political aspects here, and I believe there shouldn’t be any,” he said.
“The International Space Station has enriched science with knowledge about the
Earth and about the universe and brought us all together,” Borisov said. “Such projects should stay away from politics. I’m sorry that our joint space projects that are important for the entire humankind are getting a political tinge. It’s wrong.”
NASA officials said they had yet to hear directly from their Russian counterparts on the matter. Nelson issued a statement saying the agency was “committed to the safe operation” of the space station through 2030 and continues “to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit.”
NASA continues to plan launches with Russia to
the space station with Russian cosmonauts on the Commercial Crew Program flights from the U.S., including next month’s planned Crew-5 launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, while also sending NASA astronauts to launch on Soyuz to the station.
“Despite all of the problems on terra firma, we are keeping that professional relationship because these guys and the cosmonauts are really professional,” Nelson said earlier this year. “Mission Control Houston and Mission Control Moscow are professionals.”