Washington - The International Space Station will continue operations through at least 2024, US space agency NASA and the White House said Wednesday.
US President Barack Obama's administration approved the extension that would add at least four years to the life of the orbiting laboratory, whose funding currently runs only through 2020.
The extention “will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world, and maintain American leadership in space,” NASA administrator Charles Bolden and White House science advisor John Holdren said in a joint statement.
The move will allow longer-term planning on scientific research, allow researchers to study space travel beyond low-Earth orbit and provide certainty to commercial companies now delivering supplies to the station and looking to shuttle crew to the ISS, NASA said.
The commercial spaceflight firms plan to shuttle astronauts beginning in 2017, and by extending the station's life and adding more flights, the sector will have more time to grow and improve the companies' investment, NASA said. The announcement comes ahead of an international summit on the future of space exploration in Washington this week.
Extending the station for at least a decade will allow NASA to focus on long-term goals of deep space exploration. Bolden and Holdren pointed to the need to study health-risks to astronauts from long-term habitation in space and to test equipment as the US space agency plans to send astronauts to an asteroid in the next decade and to Mars in the 2030s.
They also pointed to medical and technological research being conducted on station. “What a tremendous gift the administration has given us,” said NASA associate administrator William Gerstenmaier.
NASA would continue to include funds in its budget for the ISS, which now stands at around 3 billion dollars per year, Gerstenmaier said.
Congress must approve all spending requests, but NASA officials said lawmakers have so far reacted positively to the idea.
The US and its international partners have been evaluating whether the ISS equipment can maintain operations beyond 2020.
All the international space agencies have not yet decided on their ongoing involvement in the ISS, but Gerstenmaier said he expected them to see the benefit of long-term involvement in the joint programme.
Sapa-dpa