NASA space operations director Kathy Luedens told the United Kingdom (UK)-based news agency Reuters on Wednesday that she and her colleagues at the US space organization still had not received any indication from Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency that there had been or was going to be any change in their working relationship on the space station.
However, on Tuesday, new Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov announced that Russia would go ahead and end more than a quarter century of cooperation with the United States on the space station after its scheduled shutdown date in 2024.
Biden administration officials almost immediately acknowledged the statement came as an unexpected surprise to them.
US government and space agency officials have both repeatedly said they expected the space station to remain operational and anticipated continuing Russian partnership on it at least until 2028 and probably through 2030.