The impact of the Ukraine war is likely to have a long term effect on deep space exploration as Russia, US, Europe spar over sanctions following Moscow’s military offensive in the neighbouring country. With US levying harsh sanctions aimed at stopping military modernisation and hitting the Russian space programme, Moscow announced that it will no longer sell rocket engines to United States companies.
Russia space agency, Roscosmos, chief Dmitry Rogozin said, “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks.” Meanwhile, the Soyuz-2.1b rocket that was to launch 36 UK’s OneWeb satellites into orbit has been removed from the launchpad. Russia removed the satellites from the pad after the UK refused to accept its demands of not using the satellite for military use and to withdraw from the company.
“Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of the Roscosmos State Corporation, instructed to stop all launches of Russian rockets in the interests of OneWeb from all spaceports, due to the lack of a guarantee from the OneWeb company that the satellites of the system will not be used for military purposes,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
The rocket engine sales ban will not affect the US as much as Russia expects, since private agencies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are building their own engines. The only affect will be on Northrop Grumman, which uses Russian-made RD-181 engines in its Antares rocket.
NEXT UP SPACE STATION
With the US, Europe and Russia embroiled in a major tension over Ukraine’s invasion, the next place to face the consequences could be the International Space Station, that has remained peaceful so far. In an interview, the Russian space agency chief said, “e will closely monitor the actions of our American partners and, if they continue to be hostile, we will return to the question of the existence of the International Space Station.”
The International Space Station. (Photo: Nasa)
Rogozin had earlier hinted at pulling out of the Space Station and, following the invasion of Ukraine, he had threatened that how the US will deorbit the Space Station without Russia. Roscosmos has already announced that it will cease cooperation on joint German-Russian science experiments aboard the space station.
GERMANY SWITCHES OFF BLACK HOLE TELESCOPE ON RUSSIAN SATELLITE
Germany joined western nations in halting science cooperation with Russia following the Ukraine invasion. The country switched off the space telescope that made the largest ever map of black holes in the universe. The telescope was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Russian-built Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma satellite.
The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) said that cooperation with Russian institutions on ongoing or planned projects will be stopped. “In light of the aggression against Ukraine, the DLR Executive Board decided to stop cooperation on ongoing and planned projects. No new projects and initiatives with Russian research institutions will take place,” DLR said in the statement.
Along with US and Russian astronauts, German astronaut Matthias Maurer is on board the International Space Station. Earlier, the European Space Agency had also severed all cooperation with Russia.