There isn’t much that Russia and the United States agree on these days. Relations between the two countries have soured in recent months but that’s not going to stop their space agencies from working together. It was recently reported that Russia’s Roscosmos will announce a new partnership with NASA this week. Both space organizations have released statements confirming that they will be working together on a moon base.
Roscosmos and NASA have released statements saying that the two countries have a shared “common vision for human exploration.” The statements confirm that they’re going to work together on a lunar base. The project itself is called Deep Space Gateway.
Deep Space Gateway is a base that NASA is planning to build in the lunar orbit starting in the 2020s. The statement mentions that work on this project will begin in the mid-2020s. Other international partners might also come onboard to work alongside the United States and Russia.
Roscosmos also mentions that a set of international technical standards will be created which will be used for the lunar space station and beyond. Both the life support systems and the docking ports will be based on Russian design. Even the existing life support systems on the International Space Station are located in the Russian section.
It’s still a long way to go before this project to materialize but this is a step in the right direction. It shows that despite soured relations, at least both countries are not holding back progress in space.