The head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, threatened Saturday that Russia could cut its ties with the International Space Station in response to the sanctions imposed in particular by the United States and Canada against Moscow.
Mr. Rogozin, who has not spared his incendiary publications on social networks since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, returned to the charge in a series of declarations on Twitter on Saturday. “I believe that the restoration of normal relations between the partners of the International Space Station and other joint projects will be possible only after the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions,” he wrote in Russian on his official account. .
The man at the head of Roscosmos then warned that the Russian space agency intends to prepare “soon” “concrete proposals” for the Kremlin in order to end Russia’s collaboration with the International Space Station. Currently, the country is cooperating in this project with the space agencies of the United States, Canada, the European Union and Japan.
Mr. Rogozin was reacting to a letter he received on March 30 and signed by NASA administrator Bill Nelson. The latter was responding to requests for “clarifications” issued by the head of Roscosmos concerning the “potential impacts of the sanctions applied by the United States government” on the continuation of the International Space Station program.
Глава НАСА сенатор Нельсон, руководитель Европейского космического агентства Йозеф Ашбахер и глава Канадского космического агентства Лиза Кэмпбелл ответили на моё к ним обращение с требованием отмены санкций против ряда предприятий российской ракетно-космической отрасли. pic.twitter.com/rnMYiK9wal
— РОГОЗИН (@Rogozin) April 2, 2022
NASA wants to be reassuring
Nelson’s letter, shared on Twitter, stresses that “the United States continues to support international governmental cooperation” in space, “in particular” activities related to the operation of the International Space Station with Russia , Canada, Europe and Japan. According to Mr. Nelson, cooperation remains possible between Washington and the Kremlin in space, despite the “export control” measures put in place by the United States in retaliation for the Russian invasion.
NASA also maintains that it continues to collaborate with Roscosmos and that this cooperation is not currently affected by the war in Ukraine, according to what the American network CNN reported on Saturday. The journalist specializing in the space field for the Ars Technica media, Eric Berger, also published an analysis on Saturday of these recent publications by Dmitri Rogozin in which he affirms that the end of Russia’s participation in the Station space is “unlikely”, at least in the short term.
Mr. Rogozin is not his first threats on social networks in the context of the war in Ukraine. In particular, he said in mid-March that the operation of Russian vessels supplying the International Space Station would be disrupted by Western sanctions against Moscow in connection with the invasion of Ukraine. This would even risk causing “the ditching or forced landing” of the International Space Station, he had warned then.
International space cooperation has also weakened in various respects in recent weeks, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Space Agency thus announced last month the suspension of the Russian-European ExoMars mission and the search for alternatives for the launch of four other missions.
Moscow, for its part, suspended the launch of OneWeb satellites, forcing its British operator to turn to billionaire Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX.
-With Agence France-Presse