Russia to drop out of International Space Station after 2024

MOSCOW — Russia will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief said Tuesday amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the fighting in Ukraine. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued a statement saying that the agency was “committed to the safe operation” of the space station through 2030 and continues “to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit.” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called the announcement “an unfortunate development” given the “valuable professional collaboration our space agencies have had over the years.” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. is “exploring options” for dealing with a Russian withdrawal. Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent 340 continuous days aboard the International Space Station in 2015 and 2016, said that the Russian statement “could be just more bluster,” noting that ”after 2024" is vague and open-ended. Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts, who spent six months on the space station in 2014 and 2015, said a Russian pullout would be “a disaster” and send “a significant statement to the world that they are very undependable.” But Virts also said that Putin “has crossed a line, and we need to disengage from them on the ISS.” He said he’s especially disappointed that three of the cosmonauts he flew with in space are now in the Russian parliament, or Duma, supporting the war in Ukraine. Scott Pace, director of George Washington University’s space policy institute, said it also “remains to be seen whether the Russians will, in fact, be able to launch and maintain their own independent station.” Russia has made no visible effort so far to develop its own space station, and the task appears increasingly daunting now amid the crisis in Ukraine and the Western sanctions that have limited Russia’s access to Western technology.