The state commission set up by Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos to probe the abortive Soyuz booster launch has never established any special group to study the option of deactivating the International Space Station (ISS), Roscosmos told, TASS reports on Saturday.
"The state commission has not established any group for the issues of deactivating the ISS. This information has nothing to do with reality. The issue of the station’s deactivation is not being considered," the Russian space agency said.
Some media outlets reported earlier that the state commission probing the Soyuz booster launch incident had set up a special group to study the option of leaving the world’s sole orbiter crewless.
Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Programs Sergei Krikalyov said that the International Space Station might be left without a crew and leaving it unmanned was a stipulated option but specialists would try to avoid this scenario. "Theoretically, the ISS can be left without a crew. An unmanned mode is stipulated. We will do everything possible to prevent this because the station was created for manned flights. The procedure to deactivate the station is prescribed but it is undesirable and we will try to avoid it," Krikalyov said.