The assurance on Tuesday from Russia came after the newly appointed head of its space agency, Roscosmos, surprised NASA earlier in the day by announcing that Moscow intended to end more than two decades of cooperation on the space station “after 2024”. “We’re not getting any indication at any working level that anything has changed,” Kathy Lueders, NASA’s head of space operations, told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that the US space agency’s relationship with Roscosmos remained “business as usual.” Any ISS partner must give one year’s notice of withdrawing from the international agreement. Russia’s space program has a long and storied history. As the Soviet Union, it launched the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. it launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. it launched the first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. both performed the first spacewalk and built the first space station. Their Soyuz rockets, which carry their cosmonauts to the ISS, are workhorses designed since the end of the Cold War era. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, Roscosmos has faced many challenges, both financial and political. More recently, he was accused of corruption. Over the years, the then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, has made outrageous threats and proposals to NASA. When the war in Ukraine began, he threatened to abandon American astronauts on the ISS – along with a video – got into a heated exchange on Twitter with former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and told NASA he would have to use broomsticks to get there at the station. The Russian government-controlled RIA Novosti pic.twitter.com/fj2coK1xR1 —@NASAWatch Russia has also focused more on military uses of space and last November conducted an anti-satellite test that produced more than 1,500 pieces of detectable debris. The act was widely condemned by the space community and other countries. Russians continue to work and live on the ISS, and in September, cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly aboard a SpaceX rocket as a mission specialist heads to the station. NASA has plans to continue using the ISS until at least 2030. WATCHES | Russian rocket test hits ISS nerves:
Russia accused of endangering astronauts with space rocket test
Russia is accused of endangering astronauts on the International Space Station by conducting a rocket test and blowing up its own satellite, which created enough debris to force the astronauts to hide in safety hoods.
