By Alexey Petrov, for Eurasia Business News – July 31, 2021

The Scientific and Technical Council of the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, has discussed the prospects for the operation of the International Space Station after 2024. In connection with the end of service time of the ISS in 2028, it was decided to launch a new Russian space orbital station, as part of the ISS or as an independent national station.

“Due to the aging of a significant part of the station’s equipment, further operation of the Russian segment of the ISS after 2024 creates additional risks. In order to prevent the termination of the continuous development of the near-earth space infrastructure, it has been proposed to create a national manned space complex in low-earth orbit – the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), “Roscosmos announced in a statement.

The new Russian space station “should become an evolutionary step in the development of a program for the study and development of the space flights to the Moon and to Mars and the implementation of innovative scientific and technical programs in space,” said the Russian state corporation.

While the Russian space station of the new generation is under development, the Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia will work on the Russian segment of the ISS and will take measures to maintain its operability and safety. RKK will also develop and agree with partners a scenario for the completion of the ISS operation.

The Russian authorities’ plans to create a national space station were announced in a private part of a meeting on the development of the space industry, which was chaired by President Vladimir Putin on April 12. At the meeting, it was decided to warn the ISS partners about the withdrawal from the project from 2025.

Read also : Space Tourism: Russia to send Japanese billionaire aboard the ISS

At the end of 2020, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, the operator of the Russian segment of the ISS, already proposed abandoning the further operation of the Russian module. According to the first deputy general director of Energia and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Solovyov, a number of elements at the Russian module fail, and after 2025 this process will acquire an “avalanche-like” character. Mr. Soloviev suggested concentrating on the creation of a national space station.

The ISS crew often reports problems at the station. One of them is a crack in the Russian Zvezda module, which caused an air leak.

In 2016 the NASA Administrator Charles Bolden discussed the lifespan of the ISS and said that its year of expiration is 2028. The International Space Station became habitable for astronauts on November 2, 2020.

Funding programs with space tourism

Last May the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced that the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano will be the next tourists to stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The two men will join the ISS in December 2021 with the Russian Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft.

The opportunities for orbital space tourism are limited and expensive, the Russian space agency Roscosmos being currently the only on to provide transport to the International Space Station (ISS) for private tourists. The price for a space flight organized by the company Space Adventures Ltd, to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft is about USD 20-35 million.

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