Russia makes shock u-turn on abandoning the ISS as it reaches out to Nasa

RUSSIA has reached out to Nasa to make changes to a previous statement about leaving the International Space Station.

Earlier this week, Russia said it would opt out of being a part of the ISS after 2024.

1

According to Reuters, a senior Nasa official has since confirmed that Russian space officials corrected this to say they’d like to keep their cosmonauts on the ISS until they’ve built their own station.

Estimates suggest that it could now take about six years before Russia cuts ties with Nasa rather than the proposed two.

Yuri Borisov is the new leader of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos.

He said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Roscosmos will fulfill all its upstanding obligations.

Borisov previously said: “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made”.

Russian space officials had mentioned a plan to leave the ISS in 2024 before but this was the first time it was officially confirmed by the head of Roscosmos.

However, Kathy Lueders, Nasa’s space operations chief, later said that Russian officials wish to keep the ISS partnership until their own space station is ready.

Lueders told Reuters: “We’re not getting any indication at any working level that anything’s changed.”

She added that the relationship between Roscosmos and Nasa remains “business as usual”.

The space revelations come amid rising tensions with the West as the Kremlin continues the war in Ukraine.

Right now, Russian cosmonauts are currently onboard the ISS with European astronauts.

The ISS is actually a combination of two space stations.

One is known as the Russian segment and one is known as the American module.

Nasa previously condemned the Kremlin and cosmonauts, including Artemyev, for sitting for a politically-charged photo while on the ISS.

Despite the tensions, the US space agency and Roscosmos have a deal that astronauts can still fly on Russian rockets.

Russian cosmonauts will also be able to travel to the ISS via SpaceX later this year.