The head of Russiaʼs space program said that Moscow would suspend its mission to the International Space Station.
This was reported by Bloomberg.
"The decision has already been made, we are not obliged to speak about it publicly," Roscosmos (Russian State Space Corporation) CEO Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Russian propaganda television on Saturday.
"I can only say this — in accordance with our commitments, we will inform our partners about the end of our work on the ISS in a year."
Rogozin clarified that the terms of Russiaʼs work on the ISS are determined by the government and the president, currently, Russia continues to work at the station until 2024. Earlier this month, he threatened to end Russiaʼs mission if the United States, the European Union, and Canada did not lift sanctions against Russian space companies.
- NASA, which plans to operate the space station by 2030, continues to use Russian Soyuz spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. The US space agency now relies more on private space flights.
- On April 8, SpaceX successfully sent its first tourist mission to the ISS.
- On April 26, the first private space mission safely completed a two-week scientific mission to the ISS and landed in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida.
- On April 27, SpaceX launched the fourth group of astronauts into orbit. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft called Freedom.