On July 14 local time, the secretariat of Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov announced that, following a visit by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, the U.S. and Russia have developed a joint plan to end International Space Station (ISS) operations by the end of 2030.
That same day, Manturov, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Bakanov, and Nelson jointly attended a launch ceremony. At 17:48 Moscow time, Russia’s Soyuz MS-29 crewed spacecraft successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, along with U.S. astronaut Anil Menon, to the ISS.
This marks the first visit by a NASA administrator to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in eight years. The two sides also discussed emergency mutual aid for national orbital stations, joint lunar exploration projects, and collaborative experiments in space medicine and biology.
The ISS began construction in 1998, with an original design life of 15 years, which has been extended multiple times. The Russian segment’s core module, the Zvezda service module, has been experiencing air leaks since 2019.
In June of this year, due to worsening air leaks, two Russian cosmonauts conducted repair operations, while the other five crew members briefly took shelter in the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, only returning to the station after repairs were paused.
Reuters noted at the time that issuing such a shelter-in-place order on the ISS is extremely rare, designed to prepare astronauts for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster, typically only issued when the station faces threats like space debris. To date, the ISS has never actually executed an emergency evacuation.
Over the past few months, the U.S. and Russia have been in ongoing debate over the cause of the leaks and repair plans for that module. Experts say that despite the increased leakage, the station remains safe for now.