Russia says it will begin building its own space station next year. The plan aims to be in orbit in 2027President Vladimir Putin said this week. The announcement comes a couple of months after the resounding failure of this country’s mission that intended to land a ship at the south pole of the Moon. And when India and China have announced their new plans to develop their respective stations.
Everything that has to do with financing and contractual arrangements has been resolved, said this Friday Vladimir Kozhevnikov, deputy chief designer of the space company Rocket and Space Corporation Energia. While the first module is expected to be launched at the end of 2027, andThe objective is to put four more into operation between 2028 and 2030, in accordance with TASSthe Russian news agency.
Russia is one of the five countries currently collaborating with the International Space Station (ISS), a NASA-led program that is in its final years. Moscow announced this year that it will remain at the station until 2028. Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency will support the continuity of operations until 2030
Putin has proposed his own station, which they have called the Russian Orbital Station (ROS), will serve to replace the ISS. “It is getting old and will come to an end sometime around 2030,” he told reporters Thursday. “As ISS resources are depleted, we need to bring not just one segment, but the entire station, into service.”
The roadmap they have revealed explains that the first crew of astronauts will fly to the station six months after the first module is launched. They assured that there will not be a big difference between the requirements for ROS cosmonauts and those existing to work on the ISS.
Russia’s plan for a space station after the failure on the Moon
«Mistakes are mistakes. It’s a shame for all of us.”, Putin shared with reporters on Thursday, regarding Russia’s latest attempt to return to the Moon. And the failure of this mission was monumental, technically and symbolically. The Russians had not sent a mission to the lunar surface since 1976, when they disputed the leadership of the special race with the United States.
Since then, the Russians attempted two launches to Mars—in 1996 and 2011—but neither could even reach beyond low-Earth orbit. Apart from his work on the ISS, he has collaborated with some European missions. But, this year, it was his first big opportunity in years to rescue his old space power image.
The Luna-25 mission had planned to land at the south pole of the Moon on August 21, where everyone expects to find frozen water. But everything went wrong: A couple of days before the moon landing, in one of the last maneuvers, the unmanned vehicle crashed.
NASA reported several weeks later that it had found a crater formed by the accident on the lunar surface. The worst: the Indian team, which had also sent a spacecraft to the same region of the satellite, successfully managed to land on the moon about four days after the Russian failure.
«This is space exploration and everyone understands it. It is an experience that we can use in the future,” said the Russian president. «Of course we will work on this. The lunar program will continue. “There are no plans to close it,” Putin said.
China and India as options
India, after its mission to the south pole of the Moon, began a program to explore the Sun and announced that it hopes to build its own space station. But it will not be ready until 2035. China, on the other hand, has already had its station in orbit since 2021: Tiangong, which translates as “Heavenly Palace”.
The last of its three main parts, the Mengtian laboratory – “Dreaming of Paradise” – docked with the rest of the station in November last year. The structure has half the capacity of the ISS, but China announced this month that it plans to double its structure in the coming years.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said this week that it was ready to welcome foreign astronauts to its station. He highlighted his intention to forge collaborative work with other agencies that would even reach its manned mission to the Moon planned for before 2030. Since 2011, China could not participate in the ISS program due to a US veto.
It is China and not Russia that NASA is afraid of. “We want to stop China from coming in and saying the water is theirs,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview in May. “The real space race is between us and China.”