NEW YORK, April 28. /TASS/. All countries participating in the International Space Station (ISS) project have agreed to extend its operations after 2024, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said in a statement.
"The United States, Japan, Canada, and the participating countries of ESA (European Space Agency) have confirmed they will support continued space station operations through 2030 and Russia has confirmed it will support continued station operations through 2028," NASA said in a statement, posted on its official website.
The US space agency said its specialists will "continue to work with its partner agencies to ensure an uninterrupted presence in low Earth orbit, as well as a safe and orderly transition from the space station to commercial platforms in the future."
Earlier, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told Reuters in an interview that he expected Russian-US cooperation on the ISS project to continue until 2030. NASA budget for fiscal year 2024 (for the period of October 1, 2023 until September 30, 2024) says that financing for ISS operations will continue until at least 2030.
Earlier this week, Roscosmos Director General Yury Borisov has sent out letters to the space agency chiefs from the partner countries to inform them of Russia’s decision to extend the operation of the International Space Station (ISS) to 2028.
The International Space Station (ISS) has been in the orbit since November 20, 1998. It consists of several modules and weighs around 435 tonnes, or even up to 470 tonnes when spacecraft are docked to it. A total of 14 countries are participating in the ISS project: Russia, Canada, the United States, Japan and ten member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) - Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Sweden and Switzerland.