Russia’s plans: Russia is in plans to breakaway from the International Space Station and build their own, if approved by President Vladimir Putin. According to Roscosmos, Russia is expected to leave the ISS by 2025 with the aim of launching their own space station into orbit by 2030. This could mark a new era for Russian space exploration as they have worked in collaboration for a few decades with the ISS now. The main motivation behind this idea is “if you want to do well, do it yourself”.
Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025 as Moscow seeks to build its own and turns to China for co-operation https://t.co/3Njda6T1yZ
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) April 21, 2021
Implications: For quite a few decades, the ISS has served as the centre for international space research and collaboration and is accredited to most of man kind’s achievements in the field of space. The scientific breakthroughs have proved pivotal for the technological benchmarks set in the world today. Most importantly, the ISS has played an impeccable role in maintaining post cold war ties between the USA and Russia. However, as seen before, geopolitics is at play again and the current Russian administration wants to lead the way in technology and feel they can only do so with their own platform.
Collaboration and Financing: According to Interfax, the Russian administration is ready to spend close to $6 billion on the launch of the project. Moreover, when questioned about collaboration and use by other states, Russian representatives quoted “Russia was ready to consider allowing foreign crews to visit.