The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has revealed plans to build an orbiting outpost and land cosmonauts on the moon once the International Space Station (ISS) is mothballed next decade.
In an official statement , Roscosmos pledged its support for the ISS until 2024 but outlined plans to disconnect its modules soon after, and use them to build a Russian space station in its place.
The creation of a national space station would ensure that Russia has a base to fly cosmonauts to until it has developed its more ambitious plans to send crews on orbiting missions around the moon and land them on its surface by 2030.
Since Nasa, the U.S. space agency, retired its fleet of space shuttles, Russia has been the only nation able to ferry humans to and from the ISS aboard its Soyuz rockets.
The Russians’ commitment to the ISS was welcomed by some experts, including Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who covered the David Bowie classic, Space Oddity, from the ISS. “This is excellent news, especially when read between the rhetoric. ISS is a key global symbol,” he tweeted.
Other nations involved in the ISS are yet to give assurances that they will keep funding the space station beyond 2020. Moscow had threatened to pull out by that point, but the economic crisis, driven by low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine, have stymied those plans.
Despite the enthusiasm over Moscow’s decision to extend its support, the plans outlined by Roscosmos for a national space station and human missions to the moon suggest that Russia is poised to break away from its international partners in space exploration.
“The International Space Station was a focus for everybody and although its life is going to be extended, it’s still going to be limited,” said Martin Barstow, president of the Royal Astronomical Society. “The collaborative part of that project may go, and it would be bad if it were lost. The way to avoid fighting is to work together on international significant projects. In the next ten years things could change quite dramatically.” Beyond human space exploration, Russia has collaborations with several countries to carry out robotic missions to planets. The European Space Agency is working with Russia on the Exomars Mars rover, which is due to depart for the red planet in 2018. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2015
