Is This the End of The Space Station?

A symbol of international cooperation in space is under threat

- JeffWise

Rogozin, now general director of Roscosmos,

The station isn’t built to exist without the Russian module The International Space Station, whose first components were launched in 1998, is a collaboration among a handful of countries. Without the parts that Russia is responsible for, it couldn’t function.

Rassvet (“Sunrise”) provides storage and a docking port. It was added in 2010.

Zarya (“Dawn”) was the first piece of the ISS, launched in 1998.

Zvezda (“Star”) has provided living quarters and life support since 2000.

Nauka (“Science”) was added in 2021 as a place to conduct experiments. At the end of Nauka is the Prichal (“Pier”) docking node.

Soyuz (“Union”) and Progress are capsules that shuttle crew and supplies.

As joke videos go, it wasn’t very funny. Set to a bouncy Russian pop tune, the 57-second clip posted to Telegram showed International Space Station cosmonauts hugging an American astronaut goodbye, climbing into the Russian segment of the ISS, undocking, and flying away, as Russian ground controllers gave a standing ovation.

What lent the ostensibly lighthearted clip a darker feel was the identity of the organization that made it—Roscosmos, Russia’s equivalent of NASA—and what the video implied would happen next. With the Russian portion of the station detached, the ISS would have no thrusters to maintain its orbit. The whole thing would be doomed to plunge to Earth. With a wink and a smile, Russia was suggesting it might kill the orbital outpost.