Russia plans to shorten the operating life of the ISS station
On May 13, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the country's space agency Roskosmos will shorten the operating time of the International Space Station (ISS) to 2020 and submit to the government a new space exploitation program this summer.
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| ISS station. (Source: earthkam.ucsd.edu) |
Mr. Rogozin said that after 2020, Russia wants to devote financial resources to other more promising space research projects. In addition, in response to the sanctions that the US has applied to Russian individuals and businesses related to the crisis in Ukraine, Moscow may stop supplying and maintaining RD-180 and K-33 rocket engines used in Atlas-5 heavy-lift rockets to the US if these devices are used for military purposes by the US.
Previously, in the context of disagreements on views on resolving the crisis in Ukraine, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced a temporary suspension of cooperation with Russia except for cooperation in the ISS project, which is of irreplaceable significance to the US in sending astronauts into space.
In January 2014, NASA said it wanted to extend the operation of the $100 billion ISS for four years beyond 2020.
In the field of security cooperation, Mr. Rogozin also announced that Russia will completely stop the operation of GPS positioning stations on Russian territory if the US does not agree to arrange GLONASS signal transmission stations on its territory.
Washington will have until May 31 to make a decision on this issue. In case the US stops the decision to deploy GLONASS, from June 1, US positioning stations will no longer receive signals from a total of 11 positioning stations located in 10 Russian subjects and these 11 stations will stop operating permanently from September 1 if negotiations with the US do not produce results.
However, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister affirmed that the suspension of these 11 stations will not affect civil positioning services.
In its response, NASA said it has not received any official notification from Russia about changes in the cooperation program at the ISS and hopes that bilateral cooperation will continue./.
According to VNA
