After over two decades of partnership, which was hailed as a post-Cold War collaboration for the good of humanity, Russia has announced that it will walk out of the International Space Station after 2024.
More than 20 years ago, two old rivals joined forces to launch the International Space Station (ISS). Now, Russia will walk out of this two-decade-long partnership on the ISS that shaped space exploration in the post-cold-war world.
“The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made," said the newly appointed Russian space agency, Roscosmos, chief Yuri Borisov told President Vladimir Putin.
While the ISS is regarded as the most complex engineering, scientific, and collaborative human feat ever managed, Russia will opt out of the ISS after 2024 and concentrate instead on building its own competing outer space infrastructure.
The development had been on the cards ever since relations between Russia and the West become increasingly strained due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russian forces marched toward Kyiv nearly four months ago, in one of the bloodiest battles of the new decade.
While the announcement does come as a surprise for many, the heated political turmoil on the ground has asked the hopes of the rivals to continue to work together beyond Earth.
Russia and the United States have worked side-by-side on the ISS, which has been in orbit since 1998.
The ISS lodges a series of research projects that couldn't be conducted anywhere else. Experiments on how long-term weightlessness affects the human body can't be conducted anywhere else. It is the only place to test technologies that will take humankind farther into space.
To date, CSA and Roscosmos have also been coordinating several projects on the ISS, including space radiation analysis to allow humans to live longer off the Earth.
"These partnerships and collaborations using Russian technology and parts of the Russian segment of ISS have increased the yield of Canadian research," Sirek said.
MDA, the Ontario-based company behind the Canadarm2 on the ISS and a key Canadian company involved with the station, declined to comment.
Before assuming office, Borisov was in charge of the weapons industry.
Yury Borisov, the Roscosmos chief, had been vying for ending the relationship, which was a symbol of the post-cold-war world. The announcement is being looked at as his first act to please his bosses in the Kremlin.
Borisov told Putin, "Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made."
The announcement open's way for Moscow's long-term plan of launching its station in orbit.
NASA has repeatedly highlighted that its astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard the station keep working side-by-side, as they have for years. Whatever the turmoil is on the ground, they have shown real signs of friendship. Earlier this year, when cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov handed over command of the station to NASA’s Thomas Marshburn, he said that while, “people have problems on Earth … on orbit we are one crew.” Shkaplerov called the space station a symbol of friendship and cooperation and a symbol of the future of exploration in space.
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Russia Announces Withdrawal From International Space Station
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