Russia is taking its Spaceballs and going home

In a meeting with Vladimir Putin yesterday, Yuri Borisov, the recently appointed head of Roscosmos (Russia’s NASA), announced the country will leave the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbital station instead.

✌️🛰 A deeper dive… The ISS is a joint project involving five space agencies, and has been used to conduct thousands of scientific experiments since construction began in 1998. It’s only approved to operate for two more years, but NASA has said it wants to extend the station’s lifetime through 2030 with the agreement of all partners.

• Russian officials have discussed leaving the ISS since at least 2021, citing aging equipment and growing safety risks. Talks accelerated with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
• If Moscow does end up leaving, it would pose a significant problem to the US and its other ISS partners – Europe, Japan, and Canada – who would need to come up with a replacement for Russia’s propulsion system.

✋ Yes, but: Some experts think Russia is merely posturing to win relief from Ukraine-related sanctions, and has no intention of actually pulling out of the ISS.

• “They don't have the money to build their own station and it would take several years to do it. They've got nothing else if they go this route," former ISS commander and retired US astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao told BBC News.

🏗🌌 Zoom out: China – which isn’t a part of the ISS – is currently constructing its own three-module space station, called Tiangong. It’s slated to be finished sometime later this year.