Russian state space agency Roscosmos will continue to operate a section of the International Space Station (ISS) until at least 2028, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported Thursday.
Roscosmos Deputy General Director Yury Vlasov said that Russia had “everything they needed” to build an independent space station, but that the ISS would struggle to manage without manned Russian spacecraft to transport astronauts and supplies.
Read more from The Moscow Times: U.S.-Russia Relations on the Final Frontier
The agency is now focused on producing its new Federation spacecraft, Vlasov said.
The ship will have a longer battery life than its predecessor, the Soyuz, and land with much greater accuracy.
Roscosmos is also working to ensure that rescue crews can retrieve the craft “from any point in the world's oceans,” even in severe weather conditions.
"The Federation is in completely different class than the Soyuz,” said Vlasov.
The official was also keen to stress that Roscosmos had retained all of its outside business contracts despite U.S. and European sanctions.
He claimed that the number of electrical components which the agency needed to be import from the United States with a special State Department license had dropped from 1,500 to 125 in just two years.
“Domestic counterparts for at least 100 hundred of those parts are actively being developed,” he said.
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