On Saturday, Russia announced its plans to design a new orbital station together with NASA in order to replace the International Space Station (ISS), which will expire in 2024.
The Russian side and NASA have already agreed on the joint use and financing of the ISS until 2024, but future projects are now under great concern because of the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States and the aggravation of the military conflict in Ukraine.
“The Russian agency together with NASA will continue work on the implementation of the program for the construction of a future orbital station,” said the head of the Roskosmos agency, Igor Komarov.
Komarov made this statement at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
"We agreed on our participation in the project to launch the new ISS," said Komarov.
The head of the Russian space agency said that the project to build a new station would be "open to all." Thus, the participation of countries that are not involved in the current ISS program is allowed.
“The first step will be that the ISS will be used until 2024,” added the head of Roscosmos. Previously, Russia had threatened to withdraw from the project until 2020, but now representatives of Roskosmos confirm that they will continue to fulfill their role in the program until 2024. "Roskosmos and NASA do not exclude the possibility of extending the life of the current station," - said Komarov.
“It will depend on the implementation of our joint space projects,” Komarov added.
Russia has already announced its intention to create its own space station after 2024, using modules from the current ISS after its conservation.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space sector, somewhat downplayed the significance of the Saturday comments by Komarov.
“The Russian government will study the results of the negotiations between Roscosmos and NASA. Specific decisions will be made later,” Rogozin writes in his Twitter feed.
Late on Friday, a spacecraft was launched with Russian and American astronauts on board. The spacecraft will deliver astronauts to the ISS, two of them will have to spend quite a long time aboard the station to conduct an experiment to study how long space flights affect the human body.
