Russia may abandon the ISS by 2024, experts say

NASA recently released plans for the International Space Station (ISS) to continue service until 2030.

However, Russia has only committed to supporting the ISS until 2024. The nation may use that opportunity, paired with recent sanctions on its space industry due to its invasion of Ukraine, to sever ties with the project. This would leave NASA responsible for keeping the space station in orbit for at least the rest of the decade, a task Russia is presently responsible for.

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, has tweeted a variety of things alluding to Russia pulling out of the ISS following the sanctions imposed on the country and its space agency. On April 2nd, he tweeted to say that "normal relations" between Russia and its partners on the ISS would only return to normal with "the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions."

NASA believes the sanctions enable the United States and Russia to work together and "to ensure continued safe operations of the ISS." However, Moscow-based space analyst Andrey Ionin wrote in the Russian newspaper Izvestia that "with the current sanctions, Roscosmos does not have a single argument for agreeing to the NASA proposal."