(Moscow) Western sanctions introduced against Russia could cause the fall of the International Space Station, said Saturday Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, asking for their lifting.
Posted at 10:37 a.m.
According to him, the operation of the Russian vessels supplying the ISS will be disrupted by the sanctions, thus affecting the Russian segment of the station, which serves, among other things, to correct the orbit of the orbital structure. As a result, it could cause the ‘500 ton ISS to ‘ditch’ or ‘land’.
“The Russian segment ensures that the station’s orbit is corrected [en moyenne 11 fois par an]including to avoid space debris, ”says Mr. Rogozin, who regularly posts on social networks his support for the Russian army, engaged in Ukraine.
Publishing a map of the world where the station could fall, the boss of Roscosmos notes that Russia is largely safe.
“But the populations of other countries, especially those ruled by the ‘dogs of war’ [les Occidentaux, NDLR] should think about the price of sanctions against Roscosmos,” he wrote, calling those who imposed these retaliatory measures “crazy.”
1er March, NASA said it was working on solutions to keep the station in orbit without Russian help.
Crews and supplies are transported to this segment by Soyuz vessels and Progress freighters. However, Mr. Rogozin explains that the launcher necessary for the departure of these vessels has been “under American sanctions since 2021 and under EU and Canadian sanctions since 2022”.
Roscosmos claims to have sent appeals to its American (NASA), Canadian (ASC), European (ESA) partners “demanding the lifting of illegal sanctions against our companies”.
Space is one of the last areas of Russian-American cooperation.
At the beginning of March, Roscosmos announced its intention to prioritize the construction of military satellites, due to Russia’s growing isolation due to the conflict in Ukraine.
Mr. Rogozin also announced that Moscow will no longer supply the United States with American rocket engines Atlas and Antares.
“Let them soar into space on their broomsticks,” he commented.
On March 30, an astronaut, Mark Vande Hei, and two cosmonauts, Anton Chkaplerov and Pïotr Doubrov, must return to earth from the ISS, aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.