KOROLYOV, Moscow region. Dec 28 (Interfax-AVN) - International Space Station (ISS) partners will gather in Tokyo in March 2010 to discuss the possible extension of the ISS service life, Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov told a Monday press conference at the mission control center.
"The station will work until 2020 if an affirmative answer is given," he said.
It was planned initially to use the ISS until 2015, yet the ISS construction schedule was thwarted with the U.S. Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003. There were no flights of space shuttles for more than two years, and the partners failed to deliver their modules to the ISS on time.
Russia, the United States, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada all take part in the project.