MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin believes that 2028 will be critical for the continuation of activities on the International Space Station (ISS).

"The year 2028 will be a very critical one for the further work of the ISS, so we have already begun to work on the Russian orbital service station," he said on Friday.

Back in April, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said that Russia will build a new orbital station with its partners if someone wishes to it, but is also capable of fulfilling this project on its own. 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.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov’s office announced previously 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 2020, 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 some elements of the orbital outpost were already seriously damaged. According to him, after 2025 many elements onboard the ISS were expected to go out of service.

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 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.