Russian space agency chief announced that Russian will leave the International space station after 2024 after its current commitment expires.
After rising tensions between Washington and Moscow on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Russian space officials had made declaration for planning to leave space station. But NASA want to extend operation of the station through 2030 and expressed confidence that Russian would remain.
Russia has plans for its own space station but Without cooperation with the west, the Russian space program is impossible in all its parts, including the military one.
Russia is also looking to cooperate more with China’s space program, which launched a laboratory module on Sunday to add to its space station, Tiangong. But Tiangong is not in an orbit that can be reached from Russia’s launchpads.
Space station operation is uncertain without Russian involvement because the outpost in orbit consists of two interconnected sections, one led by NASA and other by Russia. Russian side outpost is powered by NASA’s solar panels and the Russians side is responsible to provide propulsion to periodically raise the orbit.