Russia Looks East After Quitting the International Space Station

The International Space Station, the largest ever global collaboration in science and engineering, has been a cosmopolitan meeting point for astronauts for two decades. This month alone a Russian Soyuz rocket lofted a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts to the orbiting laboratory 420km above the Earth’s surface on April 9.

“Although there were some difficulties in the early days because the Russian and American space agencies had very different ways of working, we have reached a degree of operational maturity, so that in terms of crew dynamic, I have heard only positive things about Astronauts and cosmonauts working together,” said Professor Anu Ojha, director of the UK National Space Academy and an advisor of the European Space Agency.

Such varied Va-et-Vient is however coming to a surprising end. Russia announced earlier this week that it will withdraw from the $150 billion ISS in 20225, bringing to a close a remarkable period. The period that inaugurated during the end of the cold war embarked on the beginning of a new phase of international cooperation between the two prominent forces.

Despite rising tensions between the US and Russia over the past decade, the two countries’ space agencies have continued to work closely together bringing the slightest of hope that the relations could be tinkered for good worthiness in the future. According to NASA, 243 individuals from 19 countries have visited the International Space Station since 2000.The discontinuation of Russia with ISS will prosper the country’s forces to move to the East due to its strong relations developing with China in the recent months. Since Western sanctions were first imposed on Moscow in response to its 2014 annexation of Crimea.