Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “a decision has been made to leave this station after 2024.”
“You know that we are working within the framework of international cooperation on the International Space Station. We will certainly fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made Borisov told Putin in the Kremlin-broadcast Reading.
But Robyn Gatens, director of NASA’s International Space Station, said NASA had received no official word from Russia about the decision to abandon the ISS.
“The Russians, like us, are thinking about what’s next for them. As we’re planning the transition after 2030 to commercially operated space stations in low Earth orbit, they have a similar plan. And so, too they’re thinking about that transition. We haven’t had any official word from the partner on today’s news, so we’ll talk more about their plan going forward,” Gatens said.
“NASA is committed to the safe operation of the International Space Station through 2030 and is coordinating with our partners,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. NASA has not been informed of the decisions of any of the partners, although we continue to build future capabilities to ensure our significant presence in low Earth orbit.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the news that Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station is “an unfortunate development given the critical scientific work done on the ISS, the valuable professional collaboration that has our space agencies over the years, and especially in light of our renewed agreement on spaceflight cooperation.”
It is not the first time that Russia has threatened to abandon the ISS amid damaging European and US sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Borisov’s predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, repeatedly threatened to do so before being ousted earlier this month.
But this latest threat has more teeth, and the apparent approval of Putin himself. According to a transcript of a meeting posted on the Kremlin’s website, Putin said “good” after Borisov told him that Roscosmos will start building its own space station after 2024.
Russia’s withdrawal would be a major blow to the ISS, a model of international cooperation for decades.
The news comes less than two weeks after NASA and Roscosmos announced a crew exchange or “seat swap” deal that had been in the works for more than four years. Starting in September, two Russian cosmonauts will launch into US spacecraft from Florida, while two US astronauts will ride Russian rockets into space. It is unclear whether Russia’s decision to withdraw from the ISS after 2024 will affect the crew exchange agreement.
The ISS, which is a collaboration between the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency, is divided into two sections: the Russian Orbital Segment and the US Orbital Segment. The Biden administration announced in December that it had committed to extending the ISS from 2024 to 2030. But Russia, NASA’s number one partner on the ISS, never signed on.
“The Russian segment cannot operate without the electricity on the American side, and the American side cannot operate without the propulsion systems that are on the Russian side,” said former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman on CNN in February. “So you can’t do an amicable divorce. You can’t do a conscious uncoupling.”
Since then, NASA has been exploring ways to move the space station without the help of the Russian segment. In June, a Cygnus cargo ship demonstrated its ability to raise the station’s orbit. But whether the ISS could survive without the Russians is still an open question.
And the US is making contingency plans in case Russia follows through on its publicly stated intention to withdraw after 2024.
“That’s the responsible thing to do,” said NSC communications coordinator John Kirby.
He said the US remains committed to working with all partners on the International Space Station, but is taking cautious steps to prepare for a possible Russian withdrawal.
Launched in 2000, the ISS has orbited 227 nautical miles above Earth with more than 200 astronauts from 19 different countries enjoying stays on board, representing a continuous human presence in space.
China, whose astronauts have long been barred from the ISS, launched the second module of its space station this week. Although not as big as the ISS, the Chinese space station is expected to be fully operational by the end of this year.
Jennifer Hansler and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.