The current tensions between Russia and the United States may be growing past sanctions
and military exercises.
They may start to affect the International Space Station.
Some news
outlets reported that Russia threatened to ban the United States from the ISS.
This turned out to
be untrue.
But, it does bring up the question, who owns the International Space Station?
Well, as a whole, no one country owns the ISS.
It is a cooperative program between the
United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and members of the European Space Agency, which
include 20 different European countries.
They each signed the International Space Station
Intergovernmental Agreement in 1998.
This document created the international partnership for
the design, development and operation of the ISS.
So, those are the countries involved in the ISS, but again, no one really owns it as a
whole.
Instead, each country has legal ownership over sections of the labs, and the individual
hardware
and equipment that they provided to the ISS.
This gives each country jurisdiction over criminal
matters, liability issues and protection of intellectual property.
The ISS is broken into two segments the US side and the Russian side.
The US side houses
three main labs, each owned by a different space program.
The Columbus module, owned by
the European Space Agency, Kibo, owned by Japan and Destiny, owned by the
U.S. Each Space Program has made agreements on how much they can utilize each others
labs.
The Russian side is 100% controlled by Russia, which includes five modules: Zarya, which
was the first segment of the ISS, Zvezda, which includes living
quarters, two airlock modules and Rassvet, a storage and docking module.
Russia also controls the Soyuz spacecraft, which is the only way to shuttle people
to and from the ISS.
That is the important thing to note because Russia has hinted at ending cooperation with
the ISS in 2020 and possibly starting construction on their own space station as early as 2017.
This would put a serious damper on any future ISS plans the United States may have, which
is troubling because the United States has already pledged money to extend their work
on the
ISS to 2024.
Whether they like it or not, when it comes to the International Space Station, the
United States does depend heavily on Russia, so some sort of understanding between the
two
sides will eventually have to be reached.