Russia says it will leave the International Space Station after 2024

The announcement comes as NASA and Roscosmos are laying plans to transition to other stations post-ISS

Russia will opt out of the International Space Station (ISS) program after 2024, the new chief of Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday (July 26).

Roscosmos leadership has been threatening to pull out of the International Space Station for months, stating that Western sanctions will “destroy” Russian cooperation aboard the orbital lab. While those threats have been numerous and inflammatory, they have yet to sound as definitive as the latest proclamation made by the new Roscosmos chief. “The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” the current head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, said (opens in new tab), according to the Associated Press.

“That is very recent news, and so we haven’t heard anything officially,” said Kjell Lindgren, a NASA astronaut currently aboard the ISS while speaking at the 11th annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC -opens in new tab-) on Tuesday (July 26). Lindgren currently serves as commander of the NASA SpaceX Crew-4 mission. “Of course, you know, we were trained to do a mission up here and that mission is one that requires the whole crew and so we continue to work every day to conduct the science and research that we’ve been trained to conduct,” he continued. “As a crew we continue to work towards success and that is everybody working together to make sure we’re accomplishing the science and keeping the crew and the vehicle safe.”

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