Russia is about to detach a huge piece of the International Space Station

bgrpro65 juin 04, 2021

Russia may be planning on leaving the International Space Station in the not-so-distant future, but until the country actually stops sending its cosmonauts skyward it needs to ensure its half of the ISS is working as intended. To that end, a pair of Russian cosmonauts exited the orbiting laboratory yesterday to embark on a lengthy spacewalk that ended with the official decommissioning of the Russian Pirs module. The module will soon be released from the space station. At that point, it will drift toward the Earth and be completely destroyed.

Russia maintains half of the ISS and the United States maintains the other half. The Pirs module was used as a docking port for spacecraft, but Russia no longer needs it, and would rather have the new Nauka module in its place. Nauka will be equipped with a variety of equipment that will allow for even more science to be conducted on board, but first, the Pirs module has to be completely disposed of.