MOSCOW—Russia will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief said Tuesday amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the fighting in Ukraine.
Yuri Borisov, appointed this month to lead the state space agency, Roscosmos, said during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that Russia will fulfill its obligations to its partners before it leaves.
“The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said, adding: “I think that by that time we will start forming a Russian orbiting station.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) listens to Yuri Borisov, the new CEO of the Russian State Space Corporation “Roscosmos”, at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 26, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
But Robyn Gatens, the director of the space station for NASA, said her Russian counterparts have not communicated any such intent, as required by the station’s intergovernmental agreement, she said….