With Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloon, directing Earth’s orbit, 400 kilometers above our heads, with the threat that had hung over the orbit of the ISS since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Would a cessation of collaborations cause his downfall on Earth? Russians, Americans and Europeans remained together in the maneuver. And in parallel, NASA has undertaken tests with the industrialist Northrop Grumman: it works, the American spacecraft has managed to raise the ISS to avoid its fall…
franceinfo: In the International Space Station, an American freighter has just succeeded in correcting the trajectory of the station, for the first time…
Mathilde Fontez: Yes, that was one of the fears at the start of the war in Ukraine. The international space station, this big construction in orbit, a collaboration between Russia, Europe, the United States, Japan and Canada, which has been permanently welcoming astronauts since 1998, needs to be propelled at regular intervals , to maintain its orbit, and not fall to Earth.
And that, from the start, has been the role of Russian freighters. Only they have the ability to turn on their engines to give the station a small boost and guarantee the stability of its orbit. However, in response to international sanctions, the head of the Russian space agency had threatened, at the start of the conflict in Ukraine, to stop. To let the station de-orbit, and crash. He had even published a map that showed where the station could fall…
Except that the collaboration finally continued in the ISS?
Yes, the ISS has remained this little bubble in space, outside the terrestrial wars. A place where Russia, the United States and Europe work together. Even if the scientific collaborations between German and Russian astronauts have been interrupted. Everything happened normally.
On March 30, two Russian cosmonauts from elsewhere returned to Earth, with an American. Declarations of friendship were made. But NASA still decided to take precautions to guarantee the station’s orbit…
The orbit of the station would be guaranteed thanks to an American freighter?
It is a freighter named Cygnus, which is operated by the industrialist Northrop Grumman. It docked with the ISS last February, to bring food and equipment. His return to Earth was scheduled for the end of June. But just before, on the 26th, the test took place: the freighter Cygnus turned on its main engine for 5 minutes. And it worked, the station was raised a few hundred meters.
Mission accomplished, NASA proved that it had the ability to maintain the station in orbit without the Russians. The specter of seeing this construction 110 meters long and weighing more than 400 tons crashing on Earth is moving away…