The International Space Station (ISS) will end its mission by 2020 but Russia assured that the huge orbiting object will not add up to the increasing numbers of space junks circling above Earth, according to the Roskosmos space agency.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Roskosmos, issued assurance that a retired ISS will not be left behind by Russia and its partners idly orbiting above the Earth's atmosphere as he revealed that "we've we've agreed with our partners that the station will be used until approximately 2020."

A report by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Davydov as saying that "after it completes its existence, we will be forced to sink the ISS. It cannot be left in orbit, it's too complex, too heavy an object, it can leave behind lots of rubbish."

The ISS was launched in 1998 and has since been orbiting 350 kilometres above Earth hosting space missions and explorations being conducted by countries from Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada for the past years.

Its planned retirement into the ocean will duplicate the end of its predecessor, the Mir, according to AFP, which was decommissioned in 2001 after 15 years of service and then sent down to the Pacific Ocean.

At this time, the Russian space agency told The Associated Press that it has yet to consider any specific replacement for the ISS, with Davydov underscoring the fact that in-placed space programs have yet determine if another space station will be required by man's space agenda.

The United States has recently retired its fleet of space shuttles after decades of space missions that many times used the ISS as a docking station, leaving the Russian space agency the viable platform for now that will allow man to continue its exploration beyond the boundaries of Earth.

In the event that another space station will be established by joint-efforts from countries and entities interested on investing in such undertakings, Davydov said that it should be mainly utilised as a launch pad that send man deeper into space.

As full-pledge space missions that will bring teams of explorer into Mars and beyond would be impossible to launch without the active participation of man, Davydov stressed that "I cannot rule out that it will be used to put together, create the complexes that in the future will fly to the Moon and Mars."