![]() 21, carrying Prokopyev, Petelin, and American astronaut Frank Rubio aloft. The Soyuz that sprung the leak lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. The development is a troubling one that could spell peril for the crew. Ground controllers ordered Prokopyev and Petelin, who were already suited up and preparing to exit the station, to scrub the spacewalk and stay indoors until the problem could be sorted out. Simultaneously, telemetry indicated a drop in pressure in the Soyuz’s coolant tank, indicating that it was the source of the leak. Late in the day, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin were preparing for a spacewalk when exterior cameras showed a stream of white flakes pouring from the Soyuz spacecraft attached to the station. NASA seems confident as of now that all this can still go according to plan.Things got dicey yesterday aboard the International Space Station (ISS). After that, a handful of commercial space stations are headed to orbit through NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program. Still, NASA’s plans currently rely on keeping the ISS up and running through 2030 to avoid a gap in access to LEO. And the West’s 20-plus years of sustained crewed presence in space would be cut off. On the off chance that the ISS is deorbited and decommissioned, Tiangong could be up there alone for a while. China is currently two-thirds of the way through the buildout of its Tiangong space station. Looking forward: LEO could look very different in the coming years. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft are reportedly capable of docking with the ISS and providing thrust as a stopgap solution.Though Russia hasn’t provided any details about what exactly they’d take with them when they go, it’s possible that the US would no longer be able to use those thrusters. ![]() What happens to the ISS? The Russian segment of the ISS provides the thrusters that keep the station in the proper orbit. ![]() Robyn Gatens, ISS director at NASA Headquarters, said yesterday that NASA had not been alerted to any changes in the ISS partnership despite Russian media reporting to the contrary. Though it’s unlikely that Russia has the funding, parts, or manufacturing capacity to get a brand-new space station on orbit in two years, it appears likely that it will indeed leave the ISS behind soon. The partnership nears its endīorisov’s announcement casts doubt on hopes of orbital detente. Rogozin was also canned right around then. NASA and Roscosmos put those plans in writing less than two weeks ago, putting four seat swap flights on the docket. In mid-April, Rogozin reaffirmed the space agency’s commitment to seat swap plans for upcoming trips to the ISS. In the 153 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, operations aboard the orbital outpost have continued as usual.īut then…things started to look up on the collaboration front.Retired NASA astronauts began to publicly come out against continuing on with the partnership.In April, Rogozin again threatened to pull out of the ISS partnership until the West lifted sanctions.In early March, Russia issued a statement that implied the US couldn’t count on their partnership to extend beyond the current agreement, which ends in 2024.Though Rogozin’s comments were widely interpreted as bluster, at least rhetorically, tensions began to reach the ISS. In response, then-head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin tweeted a variety of thinly veiled threats, including one about the ISS falling back to Earth and landing on the US or Europe.24, President Biden responded to the invasion with sweeping sanctions on Russia. Russia’s hostile invasion of Ukraine almost immediately sent the already-strained ISS partnership between the US and Russia into turmoil.Yesterday, newly installed Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov announced Moscow’s intention to walk away from the ISS partnership in 2024 and commence construction on its own space station. The in-space collaboration between the US and Russia may be coming to an end.
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