The first module of Russia's new space station will be ready for launch in 2025, this will be the Science Power Module, originally intended for the International Space Station (ISS), Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin announced on Tuesday.
In mid-April, the Russian Academy of Sciences announced that Russia would terminate its participation in the ISS project due to worn-out technical conditions and would create its own Orbital Service Station after 2025.
"The first basic module for the new Russian Orbital Service Station is already in the works. The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation has been tasked to ensure its readiness for launch to the target orbit in 2025," Rogozin wrote on Telegram.
Rogozin's post came as a comment to a video featuring Energia's construction of the Science Power Module, which was due to be launched to the ISS in 2024.
Russia Ready to Attract Foreign Partners to Project of New Space Station
Russia is ready to involve other countries in the project to create a new space station, but is ready to finance it on its own, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said on Monday.
"We will definitely take them, but we will cope [with financing] on our own", Borisov told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster, answering whether Russia was ready to take other countries into the project.
The new Russian space station will become a transit hub on the way to the moon, Borisov said.
"This is one of the new functions, and it is being considered very seriously. The station is like a kind of transit hub, intermediate, in particular, for flights and the exploration of the Moon", he said.
The state of the structures of the International Space Station (ISS) can lead to disaster, you cannot risk lives, the deputy prime minister said.
"Situations that are today associated with the aging of structures, iron, can lead to irreversible consequences, to a catastrophe. This must not be allowed", he said.
Earlier, Borisov announced the need to warn the ISS partners about Russia's withdrawal from the project after 2025. He also spoke about plans to create a national space station by Russia. In addition, he announced plans for manned flights to the Moon and a mission to Mars using a nuclear tug.
