The United States is extending the ISS until 2030

The United States is expanding its operations on board International Space Station by 2030, NASA confirmed on Friday in a blog post. “The International Space Station is a beacon of peaceful international scientific cooperation and has been delivering tremendous scientific, educational and technological development for the benefit of humanity for more than 20 years,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

While there has never been any doubt that the U.S. will continue its short-term commitment to the ISS, NASA’s announcement comes amid heightened tensions with Russia, one of several countries sharing access to the space station. In 2021, Russia also deepened its cooperation in space with China, another American adversary New York Times recorded in June.

In the fall of 2021, there were several emergencies on the ISS, which the United States blamed on Russia. In October, sudden test fire from an anchored Russian spacecraft caused the ISS to tilt from its normal position, prompting shipboard personnel to evacuate briefly. (Fun footnote: The spacecraft that caused the incident was in space so the Russian crew could film first feature film on the space station.) Then, in November, satellite debris forced ISS astronauts to seek shelter a day as a Russian missile attack. The United States has condemned Russia for the attack. Russia has not admitted any injustice.

Later that month, in an unrelated episode, the Russian space agency Roscosmos, left the door open for possible criminal charges linked to a 2018 incident involving a hole in one of its aircraft, which the Russian media insinuated could be the result of American sabotage. “These attacks are fake and have no credibility,” Nelson said said Ars Technica in November.

In a statement on Friday, NASA highlighted sending humans to Mars as part of its ongoing projects, as well as Artemis project, an effort to send the first woman and the first colored person to the moon. Indeed, NASA it underwent a reorganization in September it seemed to particularly reflect his priorities around the Moon and Mars.