The world’s greatest research station gets a boost to at least 2028 by its partners

The International Space Station, a feat of world cooperation, is set to live for a few more years with all its partners agreeing to extend their partnership with NASA. While the world looks to the commercial sector for a successor, the public sector will continue to fund its station until at least 2028.

Russia is the only nation not moving on with 2030

NASA committed to supporting the ISS until the end of the decade, and after that, they would transition to a commercial option. NASA has always pushed the space industry forward with its policy, but some are not ready to move on from publicly funded space stations. Some nations still want to build and operate their own outposts in space.

Russia is one of those nations. While Europe, Japan, and Canada can play along with their strong ties to the US politically without much fear of being left out of the commercial space station program. Russia and the US have a must less friendly relationship outside of NASA. The country only renewed its commitment to the ISS until 2028 rather than 2030, like the other partner nations.

While this is still a win for the station, initially, it was believed Russia would pull out after 2024. This still questions what happens after 2028 if Russia doesn’t agree to partake in the station longer. While many nations participate in the ISS, it was designed to be cooperated by NASA and Roscosmos together. Many times, NASA officials have stated that the ISS cannot operate without one another’s presence on the ground or in space.

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This is why NASA and Roscosmos swap seats on Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to ensure one astronaut from each nation is on board.

What is in store for the ISS at the end of the decade?

It’s tough to think that a pillar of the modern space industry will one day cease to exist, but all great things have to end eventually. Right now, NASA is working with commercial companies to build replacements for the ISS that will come online by 2030.

Axiom is also working on its own space station that will first be attached to the ISS and then detached sometime in the future. Right now, the first segment is set to launch sometime in 2025.

Russia announced an ISS replacement back in 2021 and intended to begin construction in 2025, but now looks to be delayed until 2027 at the earliest. This new station will fly in a sun-synchronous orbit over the poles rather than the current 51.6-degree inclination the ISS flies in. In addition, this will be built and operated entirely by Russia, versus the US’ plans of having commercial-built and operated stations to which the agency will purchase time and flights on.

As for the ISS, come 2030, if there are no further extensions, it will likely be decommissioned. We don’t know what that looks like yet. It could be in orbit for several years after that while NASA brings down what they wish to keep and then dismantle what needs to be removed before deorbiting. We do know that the last bit will happen, sadly. While we space nerds would love to see it live on as an orbiting museum of the past. Making that happen is just too expensive, and after NASA’s botched decommissioning of Sky Lab, NASA will be sure to deorbit its station correctly this time.