Russia Space Chief Says Country Will Fly On Space Station Until 2030 (arstechnica.com) 31
Ars Technica's Eric Berger reports: In a wide-ranging interview with a Russian television station, the chief executive of Russia's main space corporation said the country is now planning to participate in the International Space Station project all the way to NASA's desired goal of 2030. "In coordination with our American colleagues, we plan to de-orbit the station sometime around the beginning of 2030," the country's chief space official, Yuri Borisov, said during the interview. "The final scenario will probably be specified after the transition to a new NASA administration."
While the documents for such an extension have not been signed, these comments appear to represent a change in tone from Russia. When he first became head of Roscosmos in 2022, Borisov said Russia would leave the station partnership "after" 2024, which was interpreted as shortly thereafter. Later, Russia committed to working with NASA to keep the orbital outpost flying only through 2028. The US space agency has expressed a consistent desire to keep flying the station until 2030, after which point it hopes that private space station operators can provide one or more replacement facilities.
Borisov said the aging station, elements of which have now been in space for more than a quarter of a century, are becoming difficult to maintain. "Today our cosmonauts have to spend more time repairing equipment and less and less time conducting experiments," he said. Borisov also discussed Russia's challenges of getting private investment in space-related activities, saying: "In the West, particularly in America, 70 percent of space services are provided by satellite constellations created by private companies. This process has only just begun with us. This is a very risky business for potential investors."
"Right now, the dynamic growth of private space is being influenced by the general economic situation (likely referring to Russia's costly war in Ukraine), high inflation and interest rates, which leads to expensive money for private investors. We can hope that this will be a temporary period and more favorable times will come soon."
While the documents for such an extension have not been signed, these comments appear to represent a change in tone from Russia. When he first became head of Roscosmos in 2022, Borisov said Russia would leave the station partnership "after" 2024, which was interpreted as shortly thereafter. Later, Russia committed to working with NASA to keep the orbital outpost flying only through 2028. The US space agency has expressed a consistent desire to keep flying the station until 2030, after which point it hopes that private space station operators can provide one or more replacement facilities.
Borisov said the aging station, elements of which have now been in space for more than a quarter of a century, are becoming difficult to maintain. "Today our cosmonauts have to spend more time repairing equipment and less and less time conducting experiments," he said. Borisov also discussed Russia's challenges of getting private investment in space-related activities, saying: "In the West, particularly in America, 70 percent of space services are provided by satellite constellations created by private companies. This process has only just begun with us. This is a very risky business for potential investors."
"Right now, the dynamic growth of private space is being influenced by the general economic situation (likely referring to Russia's costly war in Ukraine), high inflation and interest rates, which leads to expensive money for private investors. We can hope that this will be a temporary period and more favorable times will come soon."
Space station? Lets see if Russia lasts till 2030 (Score:5, Insightful)
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President Elon won't bail Puti out?
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Probably not. Elon isn't beholden to Russia like Trump is because no one else will provide him banking services after we all found out that he defrauded Deutsche Bank by impersonating an employee of his father and claiming that he was in charge of the Trump empire before he actually was.
We know because his kids told us (Score:3)
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
https://thehill.com/homenews/n... [thehill.com]
https://www.usatoday.com/video... [usatoday.com]
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They'll hold on to 2030 if they can, so long as they get their routine resupply of vodka.
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2030 would be about the right timing for a manned Starship flight. And keep in mind, Starship is expected to have a higher habitable volume than the whole of the ISS. Essentially, every Starship launch will be like launching another ISS. Which means if we have another space "station", it would probably need to dwarf the ISS to even be considered worthwhile.
No idea what Russia expects to do at that time. They'll probably still be trying to figure out how to prop up an already worthless ruble, nevermind space stations.
I would expect at some point that a "space station" will be made up of launched starships tied together in some fashion or another. Four to six of them in a ring would be one hell of a habitat compared to the current ISS. And would likely provide a nice place to build out from for a still larger station, if someone wanted to go to the expense.
Off-topic post (Score:2)
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What ads?
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I too use a bunch of ad blockers but occasionally some ads have been squirting through as they have made changes recently. They also broke the layout of the classic interface's user page. They changed the names of a bunch of divs and put their sponsored content into divs which looked like all the others, giving them all autogenerated names. Looks like someone figured out how to block them though, because I stopped seeing them again. I only gave it a minute or two of inspection before I decided to let someon
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And their adblocker attacking scripts as well?
About 1 in 4 visits here now I get bumped off to an unstyled Slashdot page with a warning that my adblocker is misconfigured (bullshit) and I should allow all ads on Slashdot to proceed
Re: Off-topic post (Score:2)
Maybe less attacking other countries (Score:2, Insightful)
Money is a finite resource unless you're in the US federal government.
Maybe attack neighboring countries LESS and put money into scientific research and space exploration MORE?
Right now Russia kills more Ukranians than all other wars on this planet combined.
Maybe rethink that strategy... say before 2030?
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There won't be a Russia in 2026 at that rate
Probably have to deorbit the station in 2030 to celebrate the last handful of Russians for an Earth burial and museum.
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The station is having a bunch of problems caused by Russian modules. I say we vacate it and just give the whole thing to Russia... and deliver it to Moscow. It's probably not realistic to deorbit it that precisely, but I can dream.
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And of course that would be tantamount to declaring war with Russia... had you heard of Russia's 'Dead Hand' protocol? I wonder if it is still active? I think it is but i don't know definitively
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I was mostly kidding, except for the part where I wish we could do it. And, you know, the part where the failures are mostly Russian.
Of course, we're basically already at war with Russia. It's just that nobody is admitting it, and we're doing it in a way that costs us the least (while some people still cry about how much it costs, heh.)
I hope the world at least learns the lesson that including Russia in space station projects is a bad plan. They either aren't competent, don't act in good faith, or both. It
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I am just angry that we let Russia take Georgia, mostly and then when Russia took what they are calling 'South Ossetia' we let them. Apparently Politicians around the world think that both Russian and Chinese politicians will keep the
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Money is a finite resource unless you're in the US federal government.
Maybe attack neighboring countries LESS and put money into scientific research and space exploration MORE?
Right now Russia kills more Ukranians than all other wars on this planet combined.
Maybe rethink that strategy... say before 2030?
The Russians should blast their last T90 tank into orbit around Pluto. That's just about the only place it might be safe from the Ukrainians.
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That checks out. Very few Ukrainians dying in all of those other wars.
Space is under new management (Score:3)
This is a change of plans. NASA had planned to not renew the contract and pull out of the ISS and de-orbit their modules. Budget concerns, as I understand it. Focusing on Lunar Gateway and Boeing instead.
This will affect the JAXA and ESA modules which are attached to the NASA modules, but not the Roscosmos modules, which are all attached to each other and can operate as an independent unit. The Canadarm can attach to those as well, so would not be affected either.
But if Roscosmos are now dropping support for the ISS like they dropped the Mir, in sync with NASA, then they are probably planning on moving operations over to the Tiangong. China has invited all other countries except one to do research there, reminescent of the long defunct Interkosmos programme [wikipedia.org].
ISS doesn't fly (Score:3)
It is in orbit
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I think they are speaking colloquially, not factually when they use the term, 'fly'
Skylab (Score:2)
Many of you weren't around yet, but when Skylab 'de-orbited' there was lots of spuculation and fun about where the pieces would hit the earth. It was some fun, i look forward to 2030!
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NASA is paying SpaceX $800M to ensure that the ISS de-orbits when and where NASA wants it to.