![]() ![]() space agency could provide a spacecraft to aid in that deorbiting process. NASA told Reuters that Roscosmos asked two years ago if the U.S. Roscosmos could not immediately be reached to comment on Thursday. Russian news agencies last week quoted the newly appointed space chief, Yuri Borisov, saying the country had no set date for its withdrawal from the ISS but any pullout would be made "in strict accordance with our obligations." The station's intergovernmental agreement requires any partner to give a one-year notice of intent to leave. Russia manages the station's thrusters from Moscow, playing a key role in steering the station into the Earth's atmosphere at the end of its life. In recent weeks, NASA has worked on drafting a formal request to contractors for ways to deorbit the space station earlier than planned in case Russia withdraws from the alliance, two of the sources said. Multiple space companies have been pulled into the planning, with Boeing, one of the station's key private contractors, assigning a team of engineers to examine ways to control the space station without Russia's thrusters, one of the sources said. NASA provides gyroscopes for the space station's balance and solar arrays for electricity, and Roscosmos controls the propulsion that keeps the football field-sized laboratory in orbit. The ISS was designed more than two decades ago to be technically interdependent between NASA and Roscosmos. ![]() ![]() "We need to make sure, though, that we do have plans. "We are very committed, obviously, to us continuing this relationship," NASA's space operations chief Kathy Lueders said in an interview last week. NASA officials instead stress the close relationship they have with Russia's space agency, Roscosmos. While NASA and White House officials have acknowledged the existence of contingency plans before, they have avoided discussing them in public to avoid inflaming tensions with Russia. officials laid out ways to pull all astronauts off the station if Russia were to abruptly leave, keep it running without crucial hardware provided by the Russian space agency, and potentially dispose of the orbital laboratory years earlier than planned, according to three of the sources, all of whom asked not to be identified. is juggling its relationship with Russia, a crucial ally on the international space station project, which also involves such corporate names as Boeing (BA.N), SpaceX and Northrup Grumman (NOC.N).Īt risk is a two-decade old alliance NASA has sought to preserve as one of the few remaining links of civil cooperation between the two superpowers. space agency's game planning shows how the U.S. He says that without the ISS, there isn't a single good thing left in U.S.-Russia relations – and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he sees little reason for the countries to continue working together in space.WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - NASA and the White House have since late last year quietly drawn up contingency plans for the International Space Station in light of tensions with Moscow that began building before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to nine people with knowledge of the plans. Retired Air Force colonel and NASA astronaut Terry Virts commanded the ISS in 20, shortly after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. Russia announced last week that it is planning to quit the program after 2024. But that long partnership may be coming to an end. ![]() and Russia jointly built the International Space Station, an enduring symbol of global scientific collaboration in space. The mission was a powerful symbol of de-escalation after years of Cold War geopolitical tensions.ĭecades later, the U.S. Spacecraft from each country docked in orbit, and the world watched as Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts embraced more than 100 miles from Earth. The Apollo-Soyuz mission was the first joint space mission between the U.S. In 1975, a handshake in space heralded an era of cooperation between unlikely partners. A Soyuz spacecraft docked to the International Space Station in April 2014. ![]()
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