The Russian decision to withdraw from the ISS has been made, Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov said in a meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Russia plans to withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) as early as 2024. The new head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, said this on Tuesday during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station from 2024 is taken,” said Borisov, whom Putin had previously named to succeed Dmitry Rogozin.
Recently, Rogozin has repeatedly questioned cooperation with the United States, among other things, due to political tensions between Moscow and Washington over the war in Ukraine. Borissov said that construction of a Russian space station must begin before the official departure from the ISS. He added that the ISS was many years old and had repeatedly caused an uproar for its failures.
Rogozin had not previously ruled out the possibility of decoupling the Russian module from the ISS and continuing to operate it independently. He also suggested a possible use of the station for military Earth observation. After the war in Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin, Western countries also imposed sanctions against the Russian space industry.
