Will Russia step away from space exploration?

Ground Control to Major Tom – “lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on”.  When NASA astronaut, Chris Hadfield, recorded his version of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” aboard the International Space Station, it was his farewell tribute to the scientific miracle which remains one of humanity’s greatest achievements. For a brief period this week though, his words seemed prophetic as Russia announced it would pull out of the joint project “after 2024”. Without Russia, the ISS may not be viable. It might be time to “lock the Soyuz hatch’” and, with the story connected to the Ukraine crisis, it would be difficult to open it again.

For 24 hours space experts explained that, without the Russian controlled propulsion system providing regular boosts, the station would fall out of orbit. Alternatives would have to be found and that would be slightly more complicated than nipping down to Halfords for a new part. Happily, the Russian space agency Roscosmos “clarified” its statement: In fact, it intends to remain a partner until its own space station is built and that could take until 2028.

The background to the ‘”confusion” is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the same day as the invasion, the American government announced sanctions against Moscow intended to “degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program”. The then-chief of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, was unimpressed. Referring to the ISS in a tweet to his 800 thousand followers he said, “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled de-orbit and falling on US or European territory?”. 

It was standard fare. Rogozin had already suggested that American astronauts should try getting to the ISS on trampolines rather than Russian rockets. The day after sanctions were imposed, he switched to “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks”.

Mr Rogozin then called US astronaut Scott Kelley a moron, hinted that Russia might leave a NASA astronaut behind on the station, and published footage of technicians taping over the American flag on a Soyuz rocket. Kelley, a veteran of three tours in the ISS, came back with “without those flags and the foreign exchange they bring in, your space program won’t be worth a damn. Maybe you can find a job at McDonald’s if McDonald’s still exists in Russia.”

All good knock about stuff at one level, but at another we are watching the decades old space partnership crash and burn, and the likelihood grow that Russia will step away from space exploration and concentrate on military aspects.

After sanctions were imposed, Moscow said it would no longer sell rocket engines to the United States. Roscosmos announced it would not launch 36 satellites for the London based OneWeb unless the company guaranteed they would not be used for military purposes. It also demanded the “withdrawal of the British government from the shareholders of OneWeb“. The UK had helped it avoid bankruptcy in 2020. OneWeb refused and said it was suspending launches from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. SpaceX stepped in and said it would get the satellites up for OneWeb despite it being a commercial rival.

Roscosmos then halted launches of Soyuz rockets from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and withdrew its workforce. This has delayed the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars program which had been due to launch a mission to Mars. On July 12^th ESA officially ended its relationship with Roscosmos.

The last straw may have come a few days before when Roscosmos published photos of cosmonauts holding the flags of the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ and ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ both regions of Ukraine occupied by Russia. The ESA’s head tweeted that “it is unacceptable that the ISS becomes a platform to play out the political or humanitarian crises happening on the ground.”  NASA released a statement saying it “strongly rebukes Russia using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine’.

However, they need each other for the ISS and NASA has not allowed itself to descend to the nationalist taunting shown by Rogozin who has since been fired. Roscosmos and NASA have agreed they will continue to carry each other’s cosmonauts and astronauts to the ISS and ensure there is at least one Russian and American on board the space station at all times.

The ISS is due to be decommissioned by 2030 at the latest. After being completed in 1998 it was given a 15-year lifespan so it’s already six years past it use-by date. Every time it makes an orbit of the earth, it is frozen on one side and scorched by solar radiation on the other. This causes a constant expansion and contraction which is not conducive to the longevity of the structure’s materials. It was a partnership to get the football field sized station up there, and the best way of bringing most down again safely is through cooperation.

Russia has been cut off from most of the world’s space cooperation ventures and funding just as the industry is expanding rapidly. At state-to-state level Russia’s relationship with the USA in broken but a point of contact remains between Roscosmos and NASA and it’s important it stays that way. This is not just because of the ISS but because, as we saw in the mid 1970s when Soyuz and Apollo capsules docked for the ‘handshake in space’, we need routes to détente. The Soyuz hatch should remain open.