The space he will be the sanctuary of the Russian-American cooperation? Despite the crisis in Ukraine, Russia said Saturday it plans to build in partnership with NASA a new orbital space station to replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is expected to operate until 2024. “Roscosmos and NASA are working on a program for future space station” , said the director of the Russian space agency Igor Komarov on the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan), along with the administrator of the US Agency Charles Bolden.
“We agreed to a group of countries participating in the ISS project is also working on future projects” , said Igor Komarov, cited by Interfax. According to him, the project of a new space station would be “open” and could include the participation of countries which are not currently involved in the operation of the ISS.
Space, a sanctuary for Russian-American cooperation
Russia and NASA fell in late February agreed to continue to operate and fund the International Space Station until 2024, but future joint projects remained uncertain until now because of the deterioration of relations between the two countries on Ukrainian crisis fund. Moscow had then had to resort to announce the continuation of its participation in the ISS until 2024, in accordance with US wishes.
“We just do not have to other choice, “said the Russian independent expert Vadim Lukashevich who stopped space cooperation would have been much more damaging in Moscow and Washington. “Abandoning the ISS was losing all space-faring as we do not have enough money to develop our own space station.”
“This is like a marriage where divorce is impossible. The US and Russia need each other “, says for his part John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute in Washington. It ensures that space cooperation between Russia and the United States “continue without major problems” , so that whole swathes of cooperation between the two countries suffered US sanctions against Moscow.
“There are no boundaries in space”, summed up in December, during the presentation of the mission of the space shuttle docked successfully Friday to the ISS, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, while his American colleague Scott Kelly assured “does not address the political issues between (the) two countries.”
Differences in Russia?
“The first step is that the ISS is operated until 2024″ , said Igor Komarov, adding that Roscosmos and NASA “do not exclude that the lifetime of the station is extended “ beyond that date. Yet Russia had earlier threatened to withdraw from the ISS in 2020 and build its own space station in 2024 after recovering modules after mothballed.
The Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in charge of the space sector, however, seemed more prudent Igro Komarov Saturday. “The Russian government will consider the results of talks between Roscosmos and NASA. Decisions will be taken later” , has he wrote on Twitter.
Russian and American already in the same shuttle Friday
A space shuttle docked successfully with the ISS on Friday aboard an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts, who will begin an unprecedented one-year mission . Two of them – the Russian Mikhail Kornienko and American Scott Kelly – will remain for a record one-year mission. They must stay 342 days aboard the ISS, the longest uninterrupted period in the station since it is able to accommodate passengers in 2000. They both already accomplished several space missions, spent about six months in the ISS usual duration missions to the station.
Since its launch into orbit in 1998, the ISS has been largely financed by Russia and the United States, each country largely dependent on each other and space cooperation remains one of the few areas in which their agreement remains intact.
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