Russia to Quit International Space Station 'after 2024'

Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
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Russia to Quit International Space Station 'after 2024'

Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File
Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector Handout NASA/AFP/File

Moscow said Tuesday it was leaving the International Space Station "after 2024" amid tensions with the West, in a move analysts warned could lead to a halt of Russian-crewed flights.

The confirmation of the long-mooted move comes as ties unravel between the Kremlin and the West over Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine and several rounds of devastating sanctions against Russia, including its space sector, AFP said.

Space experts said Russia's departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector and deal a significant blow to its program of crewed flights, a major source of Russian pride.

"Of course, we will fulfil all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made," Yury Borisov, the new head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, told President Vladimir Putin, according to a Kremlin account of their meeting.

"I think that by this time we will start putting together a Russian orbital station," Borisov added, calling it the domestic space program's main "priority".

"Good," Putin replied.

The ISS is due to be retired after 2024, although US space agency NASA says it can remain operational until at least 2030.

The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of hope for US-Russia cooperation following their Space Race competition during the Cold War.

The United States said it was taken by surprise by the announcement.

"It's an unfortunate development given the critical scientific work performed at the ISS, the valuable professional collaboration our space agencies have had over the years," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

In a statement to AFP, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the agency "has not been made aware of decisions from any of the partners, though we are continuing to build future capabilities to assure our major presence in low-Earth orbit".

Until now, space exploration has been one of the few areas where cooperation between Russia and the United States and its allies had not been wrecked by tensions over Ukraine and elsewhere.

- 'Like an old woman's flat'-
Russia is heavily reliant on imports of everything from manufacturing equipment to consumer goods, and the effects of Western sanctions are expected to wreak havoc on the country's economy in the long term.

Space expert Vadim Lukashevich said space science cannot flourish in a heavily sanctioned country.

"If the ISS ceases to exist in 2024, we will have nowhere to fly," Lukashevich told AFP. "At stake is the very preservation of manned flights in Russia, the birthplace of cosmonautics."

Pointing to Russia's growing scientific and technological isolation, Lukashevich said the authorities could not plan more than several months in advance and added that even if Russia builds an orbiting station, it would be a throwback to the 1980s.

"It will be archaic, like an old woman's flat, with a push-button telephone and a record player," he said.

Space analyst Vitaly Yegorov struck a similar note, saying it was next to impossible to build a new orbiting station from scratch in a few years.

"Neither in 2024, nor in 2025, nor in 2026 will there be a Russian orbital station," Yegorov told AFP.

He added that creating a fully-fledged space station would take at least a decade of "the most generous funding".

Yegorov said Russia's departure from the ISS meant Moscow might have to put on ice its program of manned flights "for several years" or even "indefinitely".

The move could also see Russia abandon its chief spaceport, Baikonur, which it is renting from Kazakhstan, Yegorov said.

Russian Soyuz rockets were the only way to reach the International Space Station until SpaceX, run by billionaire Elon Musk, debuted a capsule in 2020.

- 'Difficult to restore' -
The Soviet space program can boast of a number of key accomplishments, including sending the first man into space in 1961 and launching the first satellite four years earlier. These feats remain a major source of national pride in Russia.

But experts say Roscosmos is now a shadow of its former self and has in recent years suffered a series of setbacks, including corruption scandals and the loss of a number of satellites and other spacecraft.

Borisov, appointed in mid-July, replaced Dmitry Rogozin, a firebrand politician known for his bombastic statements.

Rogozin had previously warned that without cooperation from Moscow, the ISS could de-orbit and fall on US or European territory.

In a possible sign of disagreement with Borisov, Vladimir Solovyov, chief designer at spacecraft manufacturer Energia, said Russia should not rush to quit the ISS.

"If we halt manned flights for several years, then it will be very difficult to restore what has been achieved," he was quoted as telling the Russky Cosmos magazine.



Risk of Further Floods in Texas during Desperate Search for Missing as Death Toll Tops 80

05 July 2025, US, Ingram: A K9 unit with the Texas Game Warden conducts searches in flood damaged areas next to Camp Mystic in Hunt. Photo: San Antonio Express-News/Express-News via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
05 July 2025, US, Ingram: A K9 unit with the Texas Game Warden conducts searches in flood damaged areas next to Camp Mystic in Hunt. Photo: San Antonio Express-News/Express-News via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Risk of Further Floods in Texas during Desperate Search for Missing as Death Toll Tops 80

05 July 2025, US, Ingram: A K9 unit with the Texas Game Warden conducts searches in flood damaged areas next to Camp Mystic in Hunt. Photo: San Antonio Express-News/Express-News via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
05 July 2025, US, Ingram: A K9 unit with the Texas Game Warden conducts searches in flood damaged areas next to Camp Mystic in Hunt. Photo: San Antonio Express-News/Express-News via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

With more rain on the way, the risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in central Texas on Monday even as crews search urgently for the missing following a holiday weekend deluge that killed at least 82 people, including children at summer camps. Officials said the death toll was sure to rise.

Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late Friday.

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,” The Associated Press quoted Brown as saying.

A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage.

Gov. Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning.

One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

Searching the disaster zone Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.

Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.”

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.

Prayers in Texas — and from the Vatican Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.

In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. The first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, saying, “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”