New Russian Space Station

[MartG]

It seems the Russians are thinking of starting to build a new, independent space station starting in 2017.

http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/760137

Starting then I guess it would be fully operational by the time they say they'll be withdrawing from the ISS in 2020.

Given the different orbital inclination planned for the new station I doubt they'd be able to reuse any of the parts they supplied for the ISS, so if they do go ahead and decouple their bits from the ISS they'd probably just be de-orbited in a massive display of pique.

Whether the ISS would then be able to continue is problematical. I'm not sure how critical the Russian modules are to the station or if the US would be able to replace them in time to allow continued use. At the moment the US lacks the capability to launch anything bigger than 28 tonnes to orbit - they'd need SLS for anything bigger

[Einion Yrth]

MartG said:

It seems the Russians are thinking of starting to build a new, independent space station starting in 2017.

http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/760137

Starting then I guess it would be fully operational by the time they say they'll be withdrawing from the ISS in 2020.

Given the different orbital inclination planned for the new station I doubt they'd be able to reuse any of the parts they supplied for the ISS, so if they do go ahead and decouple their bits from the ISS they'd probably just be de-orbited in a massive display of pique.

Whether the ISS would then be able to continue is problematical. I'm not sure how critical the Russian modules are to the station or if the US would be able to replace them in time to allow continued use. At the moment the US lacks the capability to launch anything bigger than 28 tonnes to orbit - they'd need SLS for anything bigger

Or Falcon Heavy.

[jmorgan]

Might explain that satellite that they are denying any knowledge of at the moment. Bit of testing?

[J98]

They've been saying this for a while, they want to use it effectively as a staging base to send missions to the moon and further.
The plan seems to be to re-use Zvezda, Poisk and Nauka and it's attached modules (UM + NEM 1 & 2) if and when these are launched, Zarya is tricky as it's technically owned by NASA, Rassvet could be problematic due to it being attached to Zarya.
These modules would be moved to a higher + high inclination orbit (as to cover more of Russia to reduce launch costs and reduce use of Baikonour), then new modules would be launched to complete the station.

Have a read on here: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/opsek.html

[Eric Mc]

Space stations are usually placed in an orbit of around 300 miles - although they drop down over time and need to be boosted back up every few months.