Russia is planning to pull out of the International Space Station after 2024, ending its decades-long partnership with NASA at the orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief said on Tuesday.
Chief Yury Borisov told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made.”
The International Space Station is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA.
It was launched into orbit Nov. 20, 1998 and cost roughly $150 billion to complete. NASA and other international partners hope to keep the space station running until 2030.
