U.S. Committed to International Space Station Through 2030
takyon writes:
White House commits to ISS extension
The Biden administration formally supports extending operations of the International Space Station through the end of the decade, an announcement that is neither surprising nor addresses how to get all the station's partners, notably Russia, to agree on the station's future.
In a statement published on NASA's ISS blog Dec. 31, NASA said the White House agreed to extend operations of the ISS through 2030. Federal law, last revised in 2015 with the enactment of the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, made it U.S. policy to operate the station through at least 2024.
[...] The White House's decision is alone not sufficient to continue ISS operations through the end of the decade. NASA said it would work with the station's partners - Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia - "to enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade."
One partner has already signaled its willingness to continue the ISS. "I welcome this announcement & will submit a proposal to Member States for @esa to continue until 2030, as well," tweeted Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, shortly after NASA published its statement.
A bigger challenge, though, will be keeping Russia in the ISS partnership. Russian officials have expressed doubts about both the technical ability of the ISS to operate through the end of the decade given problems with the Russian segment of the station as well as a desire to develop a Russian national space station.
Also at The Verge.
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