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Russia is capable of building orbital station on its own, deputy prime minister says

According to Yuri Borisov, the new Russian space station could be located higher than the International Space Station and this meant that it would be high orbital

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov

© Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. Russia will build a new orbital station with its partners if someone wishes to do so but is also capable of fulfilling this project on its own, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said.

"We will definitely take them along, but we will be able to do this ourselves," Borisov told Vesti program on Rossiya-1 TV channel, answering a question if Moscow would build the station alone or would work jointly with partners if someone wished to join the project.

According to Borisov, the new Russian space station could be located higher than the International Space Station and this meant that it would be high orbital. "We need to go high. <...> This will allow us to see the Russian territory to the maximum extent and especially, what is crucial, the polar areas, and this is also related to developing the Northern Sea Route," he said.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov’s office announced on Sunday that the timeframe of the station’s operations had expired and its condition left much to be desired. In order to avoid any risks in case of accidents, it’s necessary to carry out a technical inspection of the station. After this, a decision should be made on its fate. Borisov also said in an interview with Moscow. Kremlin. Putin program on Rossiya-1 TV station that Russia could leave the ISS in 2025.

In November, the web portal Scientific Russia published fragments of a speech by International Space Station (ISS) Russian Segment Flight Manager, Energia First Deputy Chief Designer for Flight Operation and Testing of Rocket and Space Systems Vladimir Solovyov at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Council on Outer Space, in which he stated that already now some elements of the orbital outpost were seriously damaged and were getting out of operation. According to him, after 2025 many elements onboard the ISS were expected to go out of service and evaluated that the spending on the station could hit 10-15 bln rubles ($130 mln-$196 mln).

Later Solovyov told TASS his speech was not a proposal on the ISS’s further development. He stressed that there was neither talk on terminating the station’s work after 2025 nor on ending partnership relations with other parties to the project. In his turn, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said that the space agency was monitoring the state of the International Space Station but generally it is early to retire it, even though some modules are operating beyond their service life.

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