Marina Koren, in an Atlantic article titled “The Russian Space Program Is Falling Back to Earth,” has plenty to say about the state of Russia’s space program. Her assessment is pretty bleak outside of the continued collaboration related to the International Space Station (ISS).

She notes:

Beyond the ISS, though, Russia’s space portfolio isn’t all that grandiose these days. Although cosmonauts fly into orbit regularly, Russia does not have a rover on the far side of the moon, as China has, or orbiters around Mars, as India and the United Arab Emirates have. It does not have a fleet of space telescopes like the U.S has. The Soviet Union was the first to send a human being to space, decades ago, and its early accomplishments are a distinct point of…