The United States is extending its operations aboard the International Space Station by 2030, NASA confirmed Friday in a blog post. “The International Space Station is a beacon of peaceable worldwide scientific collaboration and for greater than 20 years has returned monumental scientific, academic, and technological developments to profit humanity,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson mentioned in an announcement. 

Though it was by no means doubtful that the US would proceed its near-term dedication to the ISS, NASA’s announcement comes amid heightened tensions with Russia, one in all a number of nations sharing entry to the Space Station. 2021 additionally noticed Russia deepen its cooperation in house with China, one other US adversary, as The New York Times noted in June.

Fall 2021 noticed a number of emergencies aboard the ISS, each of which the US blamed on Russia. In October, shock take a look at fireplace from a docked Russian spacecraft precipitated the ISS to tilt out of its regular place, main personnel on board to briefly evacuate. (A enjoyable footnote: The spacecraft that precipitated the incident had been in house so {that a} Russian crew may movie the primary function movie aboard the Space Station.) Then, in November, satellite tv for pc particles compelled ISS astronauts to hunt shelter on the day as a Russian missile assault. The US condemned Russia for the assault. Russia didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing. 

Later that month, in an unrelated episode, Russia’s house company, Roscosmos, left the door open for doable prison expenses associated to a 2018 incident involving a gap in one in all its spacecraft, which Russian media insinuated may have been the results of US sabotage. “These attacks are false and lack any credibility,” Nelson told Ars Technica in November.

In its assertion on Friday, NASA highlighted amongst its persevering with initiatives sending people to Mars, in addition to Project Artemis, an effort to ship the primary girl and the primary individual of colour to the Moon. Indeed, NASA underwent a reorganization in September that appeared to particularly replicate its priorities across the Moon and Mars.