The pictures show three Russian cosmonauts holding up the flags of two regions of eastern Ukraine seized by Russian military forces – prompting the US space agency to issue a “strong rebuke”. The stunt was described as “fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s primary mission among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes” by NASA. Despite the growing conflict on the ground between Washington and Moscow, cooperation in low Earth orbit has largely continued with little challenge from the US to its Russian partners – although the chief executive of Roscosmos has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the cooperation. Roscosmos on Monday released photos of cosmonauts raising the flags of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic, which are not recognized by the international community. There are concerns that the diplomatic fallout over the war in Ukraine could undermine the international cooperation necessary to keep the ISS in orbit and the safety of astronauts. NASA previously told Sky News that despite heated exchanges and deteriorating relations back on Earth, cooperation between Russia and the US on the ISS will continue.
More about the International Space Station
“There aren’t really any tensions in the team,” said Joel Montalbano, program manager for the ISS. His comments followed a video posted on social media by Russian government-controlled RIA Novosti showing NASA astronaut Mark T Vande Hei being left behind on the space station by cosmonauts. Concerns grew when the video was reposted by the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin. It was just one of several barbed tweets sent by the Russian space chief aimed at American and European colleagues following the imposition of sanctions on Russia. The end of the ISS Regardless of the outcome of the invasion of Ukraine and relations between the US and Russia, the long-term future of the ISS is likely limited. NASA has released plans that could see the 444,615kg structure de-orbit in January 2031 and crash into a ‘spacecraft graveyard’ at the farthest point on Earth. Image: Point Nemo ‘spacecraft graveyard’ as seen on Google Earth. Photo: Google The Commercial Crew program is part of NASA’s efforts to help the private sector gain a foothold in space, eventually replacing the orbiting laboratory with a number of commercial space stations. In the perfect scenario, the space station’s orbital altitude would slowly drop from its current altitude of 408 kilometers (253 miles). As the ISS’s altitude drops, it will encounter an increasingly dense atmosphere, adding more drag and pulling it even lower. The space station will still be traveling so fast that it will begin to heat up and throw debris in a trail behind it. The plan to prevent this debris from harming people or property is to crash the ISS in an uninhabited area of the South Pacific Ocean near Point Nemo. Point Nemo has been called the spacecraft graveyard because – as the farthest point on Earth from any land – it is where decommissioned spacecraft are usually targeted when they return to Earth.
