Politics of the International Space Station

The politics of the International Space Station have been affected by superpower rivalries, international treaties, and funding arrangements. The space station has an international crew, with the use of their time, and that of equipment on the station, being governed by treaties between participant nations. The station is divided into the Russian Orbital Segment, and the US Orbital Segment. Crews are launched to the station via Russian Soyuz missions and US launch vehicles, although the US operated none between the 2011 Space Shuttle retirement and 2018 first crewed launch of SpaceX Dragon 2. The station has been resupplied by cargo spacecraft operated by the US, Russia, European Space Agency, and Japan.

The ISS program concept was formulated in 1993 by the United States and Russia, when their Freedom and Mir-2 station concepts failed for budgetary reasons. The countries also collaborated on the 1993–1998 Shuttle–Mir program. In 1998, the Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement was signed by fifteen countries, representing NASA, Russia's Roscosmos, Canadian Space Agency, Japan's JAXA, and eleven member states of the European Space Agency. ISS assembly began the same year. China expressed interest in the ISS program, but the 2011 Wolf Amendment prohibited most cooperation between NASA and China National Space Administration. In 2014, in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea, NASA ended most relations with Roscosmos, with the major exception of ISS operations. In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatened to terminate Russian involvement in the ISS, but as of 2025 there has been no disruption, and all crewed launches continue to have American and Russian members, as well as other nationalities. Russia has committed to ISS operations until at least 2028, and plans to construct the Russian Orbital Service Station from 2027. The US, ESA, Canada, and Japan have committed to ISS operations until 2030, and NASA plans to deorbit the station in 2031, if the replacement Commercial LEO Destinations program has met NASA's needs.

Since the last mission to Mir in 1999, only China has operated other crewed stations. It has crewed the Tiangong space station since 2021, as well the prototypes Tiangong-2 and Tiangong-1.