ZHUHAI. Nov 12 (Interfax) - The Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will inform International Space Station (ISS) partners about its decision on remaining a part of this project after 2020, Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko has said.
"The Americans wish to operate the ISS after 2020. They have announced a service life period until 2024. We have said we will make a decision shortly and convey it to other participants in the project. We have said "yes" to the operation of ISS until 2020 and a final decision regarding our involving in this program after this deadline will be made by the end of this year," Ostapenko told reporters at Airshow China 2014.
The ISS's prospects have been recently discussed in Paris at bilateral negotiations with NASA Administration Charles Bolden, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and JAXA President Naoki Okumura, he said.
"We talked about lots of things related to further operation of the ISS, experiments and so on. We appointed a number of working groups to carry on this work. For instance, we have agreed with the Japanese side to hold a new meeting and draw up a work plan in February-March 2015. The ISS remains a key issue," Ostapenko said.
According to Ostapenko, the Western sanctions against Russia have not impacted on the ISS project.
"Speaking of the ISS, there are no drastic obstacles here for now," Ostapenko said.
In spite of the sanctions, the United States is still using Russia's Soyuz spaceships to deliver its astronauts to the ISS. "So far, we are keeping to the plan, to our initial agreement, we shall see what happens next," Ostapenko remarked.
He also said that Roscosmos had been replacing spacecraft component parts manufactured in Ukraine, among them Soyuz rocket control systems.
"We are solving all problems which have emerged by now. There have been problems related to electronic component parts and these problems have been resolved. We are also seeking organizational and engineering solutions to the problem of component parts related to Ukraine and have almost developed a program mechanism, which will do away with this problem," Ostapenko said.