NASA/Roscosmos
A little over two years ago, Dmitry Rogozin, the pugnacious former head of the Russian Space Agency, nearly destroyed cooperation on the International Space Station.
During his tenure as Roscosmos’s director general, Rogozin was known for making exaggerated posts on social media and for suggesting he would abandon the space station after Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin summarily fired him in July 2022 and replaced him with former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov.
Although the conflict between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine has not subsided, the threat to the International Space Station (ISS) has ended. The project is one of the few examples of cooperation between the U.S. and Russian governments. Last year, Russia formally extended its commitment Flights to the ISS will continue until at least 2028. NASA and the space agencies of Europe, Japan and Canada have agreed to maintain the space station until 2030.
It’s that two-year gap that’s worrying NASA officials as they plan the ISS’s final days, when the space agency awarded a contract in June to develop a deorbiter based on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft that will safely re-enter the 450-ton craft into remote ocean waters.
“With regards to Roscosmos, there is uncertainty from 2028 through 2030,” Robin Gatens, ISS program manager at NASA Headquarters, said at a meeting of the agency’s advisory committee this week. “You’ll hear about Roscosmos’ follow-on plans in the next year or two, and we expect that will continue through 2030.”
Overcoming tension
Roscosmos operates on a four-year schedule, and Russia decided last year to extend its participation in the space station program from 2024 to 2028. Russian space officials understand that the future of the country’s space program is directly tied to the ISS: if Russia withdraws from the space station in 2028, Roscosmos will be left with very little of a human spaceflight program.
Giving up its role on the ISS would leave Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft without a destination, as Russia is unlikely to have its own space station in low-Earth orbit in four years. While Russian and Chinese leaders have forged closer space ties in recent years, China’s Tiangong space station is inaccessible from Russian launch sites.
The U.S. and Russian portions of the ISS depend on each other for key functions: The U.S. portion generates most of the space station’s power and keeps the laboratory oriented without using precious rocket fuel. The Russians are responsible for maintaining the station’s altitude and keeping the facility out of the path of space debris, but Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo ship has also demonstrated the ability to raise the station’s orbit.
A premature withdrawal by Roscosmos from the space station would be a blow to Russia’s space program, but Russia’s relations with the West are fragile, and U.S. and European leaders may soon give Ukraine permission to use Western-supplied weapons in attacks deep inside Russian territory. Putin said last week This is tantamount to war. “It means NATO countries, the United States and European countries going to war with Russia,” he said.
