Russia's only current female cosmonaut Anna Kikina will head to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2022, a space industry source told Sputnik.

"General Director of [Russia's space agency] Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin has ordered the cosmonaut training center to include Anna Kikina in one of the upcoming Soyuz crews set to fly to the ISS in 2022. A decision will be made soon on whether she will be included in a spring or fall crew of next year," the source said.

In March, Kikina told Sputnik that she was waiting to be appointed to a specific ISS crew and was undergoing preliminary training. In June of last year, Roscosmos said that Kikina was going to head to the ISS as part of a Russian crew within two years.

This comes amid the news that Russia plans to withdraw from the ISS initiative and deploy its own national next-generation orbital service station. The Russian space agency Roscosmos told Sputnik that the ISS modules had reached the end of its service life.