Russia is ready to build its own space station with the aim of putting it into orbit in 2030 if President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead, the head of his Roscosmos space agency said.
The project would end more than two decades of close cooperation with the United States aboard the aging International Space Station (ISS).
“If we can put it on track in 2030 according to our plans, it’s going to be a huge breakthrough,” said Interfax news agency Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos. “The will is there to take a new step in world – manned space exploration.”
Russian cosmonauts have been working with peers from the United States and 16 other countries across the ISS since 1998. It is one of the closest areas of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, whose relations are otherwise in a crisis over human rights, cyber attacks and other issues.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian TV last weekend that Moscow would notify its partners that it would leave the ISS project from 2025.
Rogozin said that the Russian station, unlike the ISS, would probably not be permanently manned because the orbit would expose it to higher radiation. But astronauts would visit, and it would also use artificial intelligence and robots.
He said Russia was willing to allow foreign crew members to visit, “but the station must be national … If you want to do well, do it yourself”.
Interfax quoted an unnamed source as saying that Russia planned to spend up to $ 6 billion to launch the project.