Commitment Phobia
Russia’s space program has thrown its weight behind NASA’s plans to destroy the International Space Station starting in 2030.
As Ars Technica reports, it’s a change of tune for the country’s space program. Its head, Yuri Borisov, who has been leading Roscosmos since 2022, has repeatedly changed his mind on whether Russia would be committed to supporting operations onboard the aging orbital outpost — or simply abandon it, as his outspoken predecessor Dmitry Rogozin has threatened in the past.
In 2022, roughly five months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Borisov said that “the decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made.” Then in 2023, he agreed to continue Russia’s participation until at least 2028.
Now, in a televised interview with Russian broadcaster RBC TV, Borisov announced that in “coordination with our American colleagues, we plan to de-orbit the station sometime around the beginning of 2030,” as quoted by Ars.
“The final scenario will probably be specified after the transition to a new NASA administration,” he added.
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NASA has long planned to deorbit the massive station beginning in 2030. In June, the agency hired SpaceX to develop a “US Deorbit Vehicle” to pull the ISS out of its orbit and have it burn up during reentry.
During the interview, Borisov reiterated that his agency sees the ISS, which has suffered plenty of leaks and cracks, as not worth maintaining.
“Today our cosmonauts have to spend more time repairing equipment and less and less time conducting experiments,” he said.
Indeed, Russian crew members have been hard at work identifying several leaks located in the country’s segment of the space station.
Other notable equipment failures include two coolant leaks affecting a Soyuz spacecraft in late 2022 and a Progress cargo spacecraft in early 2023.
Borisov also said that the process of subsidizing a private space industry “has only just begun with us.”
“This is a very risky business for potential investors,” he added.
It’s a surprisingly level-headed media appearance for the head of Roscosmos. Borisov’s predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, garnered a reputation for making deranged and at times baffling comments. In 2022, days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Rogozin went as far as to threaten the West with dropping the ISS on the United States.
During this new interview, Borisov only hinted at the possibility that Russia’s war may have depleted its available resources and put a dent in its efforts to launch its own space station.
“Right now, the dynamic growth of private space is being influenced by the general economic situation, high inflation and interest rates, which leads to expensive money for private investors,” he told RBC TV. “We can hope that this will be a temporary period and more favorable times will come soon.”
Borisov also “guaranteed” that Russia would launch a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink as soon as 2030 — but a super heavy launch platform would be a far more “expensive undertaking” that’s still many years out, he said.
More on Borisov: Russia Says the International Space Station Is a Dangerous, Decrepit Mess
