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Are NASA and Roscosmos planning ISS 2.0?
Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Mere hours after a NASA astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut blasted off on a mission that will see the international colleagues spend a year on the International Space Station, rumors that their two countries were collaborating on the station’s successor surfaced on Saturday.
According to AFP reports published by Discovery News on Saturday, Russian space program officials apparently revealed plans to build a new orbiting space base to replace the ISS after 2024, and claimed that the US space agency would be working with Roscosmos on that facility.
Russian news agency TASS noted that the announcement was made by Russian space chief Igor Komarov at a news conference over the weekend, with his American counterpart Charles Bolden also in attendance at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
“We have agreed that Roscosmos and NASA will be working together on the program of a future space station. We agreed that the group of countries taking part in the ISS project will work on the future project of a new orbital station,” he reportedly said, adding that the new station project would be “open” and could involve countries not involved with the current space station.
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Russia and the US recently agreed to continue operating and financing the ISS until 2024, and Komarov said that the current priority was to keep it operational through that period. He added that the new announcement “do not rule out that the station’s flight could be extended. Its term of existence will depend on the implementation of our joint projects.”
So does this mean that ISS 2.0 is officially a go?
Well, not exactly.
The AFP goes on to note that Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of the country’s space program, appeared to downplay the apparent commitment to a successor to the ISS. “The Russian government will study the results of the talks between Roscosmos and NASA. The decisions will be taken later,” Rogozin reportedly wrote on Twitter.
Similarly, Engadget reached out to NASA for comments on the media reports, and the US space agency said that “no new partnerships” had been announced. NASA went on to say that while it had “interest in continuing international cooperation,” but stopped short of confirming that there were any new projects in the works with Roscosmos or any other current ISS partners.
[STORY: Astronaut builds LEGO ISS model in space]
“We are pleased Roscomos wants to continue full use of the International Space Station through 2024 – a priority of ours – and expressed interest in continuing international cooperation for human space exploration beyond that,” agency officials told the website in a statement.
“The United States is planning to lead a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, and we have advanced that effort farther than at any point in NASA’s history. We welcome international support for this ambitious undertaking,” they added. “Today we remain focused on full use of our current science laboratory in orbit and research from the exciting one-year mission astronaut Scott Kelly just began, which will help prepare us for longer duration spaceflight.”
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Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1113361240/are-nasa-and-roscosmos-planning-iss-twopointzero-033015/
