Moscow still wants to open own space station despite ISS problems

Despite ongoing problems at the International Space Station (ISS), Russia is sticking to plans to build its own facility, the chief designer of the planned Russian Orbital Service Station said in an interview published on Monday.
The design planning for the orbital station will be completed by the end of 2023, Vladimir Kozhevnikov told the state news agency TASS.
Earlier, problems with another Roskosmos space transporter had emerged. Roskosmos is the Russian state-owned company responsible for space flights, cosmonaut programmes and aerospace research.
The Progress MS-21 space freighter, which has been attached to the ISS since October, has a leak, as there is a pressure drop in the cooling system.
The problem has not affected operations, according to the head of the Russian-manned space programme, Sergei Krikalev. He said on the weekend that the work of the ISS crew and the Progress MS-21 had already been completed.
According to Roscosmos, the unmanned space freighter is scheduled to undock from the ISS later this week before burning up over the Pacific Ocean.
"The situation is similar in some respects to what happened to the manned space shuttle Soyuz MS-22 in mid-December," Krikalev admitted.
A problem with the Soyuz MS-22 meant that the space capsule could not be cooled sufficiently. In order not to endanger the cosmonauts, Roskosmos decided to send the shuttle back to earth unmanned and bring the space travellers back with a successor ship, the Soyuz MS-23, instead.
Moscow, meanwhile, is sticking to its plans for its own space station, in part due to tensions with its Western partners as a result of Russia's war against Ukraine.
The first module is to be built by the end of 2027. In the future, space launches will not start from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, but from the new Russian spaceport, Vostochny Cosmodrome, in the Far East.