44 ms·

Have we actually had the announcement that Russia is going to switch from sending cosmonauts to the ISS to sending them to China's instead? Or is that just kin

Have we actually had the announcement that Russia is going to switch from sending cosmonauts to the ISS to sending them to China's instead? Or is that just kind of assumed, without announcement?

twelve40 4y ago
assumed? Where did you even get this idea? China's station has never been discussed in this context, and the current plan is to continue flying to ISS as is until '27 inclusive, then launch a new one.
dotnet00 4y ago
The claims about Russia cooperating on a space station refer to some hypothetical second station as Tiangong is not at an inclination where Soyuz would be able to reach from where it normally launches. IIRC there was some speculation that they might work with ESA to launch crewed Soyuz from other locations, but that's obviously going to be completely off the table for a while now. So the only other option they'd have is launching from China, which doesn't really make much sense. Besides that, recently (mainly after the last guy who ran Roscosmos was 'promoted' to some position related to the Ukraine war) Russia has pulled back on its "we don't need the ISS" rhetoric. Now they claim to be interested in sticking with the station beyond 2024 until their own station is ready, similar to NASA's plan of trying to have the ISS hold out until the 2-3 private space stations in various stages of development/construction are operational. The issue of course being that it's highly unlikely that Russia will ever finish a replacement space station as their space industry has spent decades in decay struggling to get any non-military projects to make significant progress. Thus it's pretty likely that they won't have a station ready and will effectively lose their crewed spaceflight capability from not having any place to go to with it.

44 ms·

Have we actually had the announcement that Russia is going to switch from sending cosmonauts to the ISS to sending them to China's instead? Or is that just kin

by rossdavidh 4y ago

Have we actually had the announcement that Russia is going to switch from sending cosmonauts to the ISS to sending them to China's instead? Or is that just kind of assumed, without announcement?

twelve40 4y ago
assumed? Where did you even get this idea? China's station has never been discussed in this context, and the current plan is to continue flying to ISS as is until '27 inclusive, then launch a new one.
dotnet00 4y ago
The claims about Russia cooperating on a space station refer to some hypothetical second station as Tiangong is not at an inclination where Soyuz would be able to reach from where it normally launches. IIRC there was some speculation that they might work with ESA to launch crewed Soyuz from other locations, but that's obviously going to be completely off the table for a while now. So the only other option they'd have is launching from China, which doesn't really make much sense. Besides that, recently (mainly after the last guy who ran Roscosmos was 'promoted' to some position related to the Ukraine war) Russia has pulled back on its "we don't need the ISS" rhetoric. Now they claim to be interested in sticking with the station beyond 2024 until their own station is ready, similar to NASA's plan of trying to have the ISS hold out until the 2-3 private space stations in various stages of development/construction are operational. The issue of course being that it's highly unlikely that Russia will ever finish a replacement space station as their space industry has spent decades in decay struggling to get any non-military projects to make significant progress. Thus it's pretty likely that they won't have a station ready and will effectively lose their crewed spaceflight capability from not having any place to go to with it.