The International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to shut down by 2030, and Russia, one of its main partners, is designing its own replacement orbital laboratory. After a decade of planning to place its future space station in a high-latitude polar orbit for Arctic observations, Russian officials have changed their mind. Instead the Russians have decided To stick with the familiar ISS orbit — the same 51.6-degree inclination that was used by the Soviet Mir space station nearly 40 years ago.
This decision goes beyond routine adjustments to flight plans. It will shape the architecture of Russia’s space program for decades to come, determining the types of modules, launch vehicles and spaceports used to build the Russian Orbital Station (ROS), and the structure of the country’s future space economy. Roscosmos officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The head of Roscosmos called the change a step towards future space cooperation with India. “We are building our own national orbital station, and India is building its own,” said Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov. Said During a visit to New Delhi, according to Russian news source RBC. India has Plans announced To launch the first part of its Indian space station in 2028. “We are negotiating to put them in the same orbital plane.”
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However, experts doubt that the alliance with India played more than a rhetorical role. “This decision is completely understandable given political and economic realities. Placing the future station in the same orbit as the ISS is much less expensive, and requires fewer manufacturing and design innovations than aiming for a polar orbit,” says Dmitry Payson, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, who was previously associated with the Russian space sector. “Compatibility with India in case of inclination became an additional justification at a convenient time for the decision motivated by different considerations,” Payson says.
He further said that remaining in the same orbit would allow Roscosmos to reuse designs and technology from the ISS and its existing Soyuz spacecraft. The result is a station architecture that looks like a step forward compared to a return to the Mir era some 40 years ago.
A polar orbit that passes over both Earth’s poles remains rare in human spaceflight. Until now, the only crewed mission to reach such an orbit was the privately funded Fram2 flight in April 2025 on a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
In December 2014, Oleg Ostapenko, then head of Roscosmos, Said The agency was considering a high-latitude station that would allow observations of much of Russia and could potentially serve as a platform for future lunar missions.
Initial concepts also envisioned a suite of novel components, including an OKA-T autonomous module for ultrasensitive materials science experiments and an expandable module – Russia’s counterpart to the ISS’s BEAM – equipped with a centrifuge. The station was repeatedly described as a test bed for potential elements of lunar infrastructure.
By 2021, much of the vision of the future had faded. Officials decided to orient the station around the Science Power Module (NEM), whose hull was already sitting on the factory floor of Russian aerospace manufacturer RKK Energia. Originally planned to reduce the Russian segment’s dependence on American power, but still incomplete, NEM was a problematic choice as the core of an independent station.
The module lacked control moment gyros for attitude control and had only one docking port, leaving no space to attach the cargo spacecraft while the crew remained onboard. Additional docking hardware and follow-on modules will need to be shipped before the minimum crew arrives.
The module will also need to be extensively reworked, including adding basic crew systems such as a toilet and a main computer, essentially turning a power plant and laboratory into a functional control center and living space.
The launch plans further compounded the problem. NEM was to be launched into a polar orbit aboard an Angara-A5M rocket – a version that has yet to fly – from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which lacked a launch pad for Angara at the time.
These obstacles ultimately led to the closure of the polar orbiting station project, says military and space analyst Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Saratoga Foundation. “It appears impossible to redesign NEM into the core of a future station,” says Luzin. “Even if basic crew systems could be added, there would be little room left for scientific payloads – it would essentially become an extended spacecraft.”
Switching to a 51.6-degree orbit solved many of the project’s challenges. The new station gets a starter module for free – one of the components of the Russian segment of the ISS, called the MLM Nauka module, which is already in orbit and fully equipped for a crew. And there will be no need to upgrade the Vostochny launch pad as crew launches can rely on proven Soyuz spacecraft from the fully equipped Baikonur Cosmodrome. NEM will retain its original role as a science-and-power module and can be launched on the reliable Proton-M rocket.
Plans to deploy the rest of the station are detailed in internal documents obtained by RKK Energia scientific AmericanThe sequence begins with “UM” docking to the Nauka and controlled deorbit of the utility node module, An almost identical Universal Node Module (UUM) will be launched from Baikonur in late 2028 and attached to the ferry, Also, the ISS will gradually lower its orbit for its planned crash in the Pacific Ocean,
In 2029 the NEM will be launched from Baikonur on a Proton rocket and docked at the lower port of UUM. An airlock module, SHM, will be attached to the side port in 2030.
Once assembled, ROS will separate from the rest of the ISS, serving as a building berth for its Russian “successor”. The new Russian station will then fly independently, its attitude and orbit controlled by two specially modified Progress cargo spacecraft docked for that purpose.
However, even these streamlined plans will require substantial work for ROS to operate independently. The relatively new Nauka module, launched in 2021, already requires repairs, including fixing its leaking cooling system. All work must be completed before June 2030, when the ISS is expected to land rapidly. There may be some lag before the Russian astronauts head to the new station.
“I believe that Russia is at least facing a disruption in its crewed space flight program,” says Luzin. “Although it has long sought partners to join the ROS project, there has been no apparent progress.”
