In News:

• Russia will pull out of the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost.

What’s in Today’s Article:

• International Space Station
• News Summary

International Space Station (ISS):

• A space station is essentially a large spacecraft that remains in low-earth orbit (LEO) for extended periods of time. It is like a large laboratory in space.
  • LEO is normally at an altitude of less than 1000 km but could be as low as 160 km above Earth.
  • ISS is placed in an orbit at an altitude of about 400 km above Earth.
• It allows astronauts to come aboard and stay for weeks or months to carry out experiments in microgravity.
• ISS has been known for the exemplary cooperation between the five participating space agencies that have been running it. These countries are:
  • NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).

Features

• The ISS has been in space since 1998. It orbits the earth at an altitude of 430 km, with an inclination of 52 degree with an orbital velocity of 7.7 km/s.
• It circles the Earth in roughly 93 minutes, completing 15.5 orbits per day.
• For over 20 years since its launch, humans have continuously lived and carried out scientific investigations on ISS under microgravity conditions.
• So far, the floating laboratory has hosted more than 3,000 research and educational investigations, carrying out cutting edge research in various disciplines.

News Summary

• Russia will pull out of ISS after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost.
• This was announced by Russia’s new space chief amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the fighting in Ukraine.
• The current international arrangements for the operation of ISS will end in 2024.
  • NASA and other international partners hope to keep the space station running until 2030.
  • However, Russians have been reluctant to make commitments beyond 2024.

Why Russia is Quitting ISS?

• Relations between Russia and West
  • Relations between the West and Russia have been going from bad to worse.
  • The US had blamed the Kremlin for carrying out the “SolarWinds” hack and interfering in the 2020 election.
• Russian invasion in Ukraine
  • At a time, when western countries are imposing sanctions of Russia, they cannot seem to be cooperating in space.
• Increased US – Russia space rivalry
  • US-Russia space rivalry has also been increasing.
    • In 2020, the US accused Russia of carrying out a weapons test after a projectile was said to have been fired from a Russian satellite.
    • Russia, in return, blamed the US for treating space as a military theatre.
  • US has started to use the SpaceX system, developed by Elon Musk, for transporting astronauts to the ISS.
  • Not only this ended the reliance on Russian Soyuz passenger vehicle, the Russian Space Agency also lost a major source of income.
    • Russian transport vehicle served as the only way for transporting astronauts ever since the US retired its Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
    • NASA had been paying tens of millions of dollars per seat for rides to and from the station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets.
• Russia’s plan to launch its own space station
  • Russia is planning to build and manage its own space station, which would be launched into orbit by 2030.
  • The station will orbit the Earth at a higher latitude, enabling it to better observe the polar regions.
  • As Russia plans to develop the Arctic Sea route as the ice melts, this station will be very helpful.
  • It would also help Russia tide over challenges associated with the ageing ISS.
    • Astronauts, presently, conduct experiments and adapt the latest technology to a hardware architecture that is over two decades old.