Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) program after 2024, the new head of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos announced on Tuesday (July 26th). This thunderous but not completely surprising statement “would end two decades of post-Cold War space cooperation”, as Moscow and the West clash indirectly in Ukraine, writes le New York Times.
The leaders of Roscosmos “threatened to withdraw from the ISS for months”, recalls the specialized information site Space.comclaiming that Western sanctions “would destroy” cooperation on board the orbital laboratory. But although these threats have been “numerous and incendiary”, none was also “definitive” that this one : “We will undoubtedly fulfill all our obligations towards our partners, but the decision to leave the station after 2024 has been taken”the current head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borissov, told the Kremlin.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson responded that the US agency, “who has not received any notification from any partner” was “committed to continue Station operations safely until 2030, and coordinates[ait] with [ses] partners”. Retired astronaut Scott Kelly, who knows the ISS well for having made three stays there, seemed to believe in a bluff. He replied on Twitter to Space.com that “in his humble opinion, this announcement is vague and unresolved bluster“and that Russia would try to stay”as long as possible” because this “gives Putin the credibility he needs domestically and internationally.”
“Dependent on each other”
Although sober, the position of Yuri Borissov remains in line with those of his predecessor, the bubbling Dmitry Rogozin, whose Washington Post recounts a recent row with Elon Musk on Twitter, in which he threatened to let the Space Station crash: “It would be possible for a 500 ton structure to fall on India or China. […] The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all the risk is on you. Are you ready ? ”. A sweeping declaration which, among other things, undoubtedly earned the former boss of Roscosmos to be thanked on July 15, but which confirms the state of mind of the Russians regarding their role in the collaboration international.
The station is designed so that its partners are “dependent on each other”, explains Jonathan Amos, the scientific journalist of the BBC. The Russian module of the ISS “provides propulsion and prevents the platform from falling to Earth”, while the American module “provides the energy”. Or “if this propellant capability is removed, the United States and its partners – Europe, Japan and Canada – will have to find other ways to regularly propel the station higher into the sky”. Amos imagine that “US robotic freighters could do it”, but that would remain a challenge.
Interviewed by NBC NewsCathleen Lewis, curator in the space history department of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution, wonders if the Russians “will no longer send cosmonauts to the space station, or [s’ils vont] downright detach and deorbit their components? ”. The way Moscow will manage its withdrawal will in any case have serious “logistical implications for NASA and its partners”.
Lack of Russian means
When he announced the Russian withdrawal from the ISS, Yuri Borissov added that his agency was now going to work on the development of its own orbital station. “But Roscosmos has lacked the money to do so for years”, notes the New York Times. “After the withdrawal of American space shuttles in 2011, NASA had to buy seats on Soyuz rockets, providing a constant flow of money to the Russians”, explains the New York daily. Gold “that revenue dried up after SpaceX began transporting NASA astronauts two years ago”. And with the economic sanctions, Russia still has “lost additional sources of income”, as well as access to technologies.
Russia could then seek to cooperate with the Chinese space program, which on Sunday launched a laboratory module to add to its “Tiangong” space station. But “the prospect of cooperating with China is a fiction”declares to New York Times Dr. Pavel Luzin, a Russian military and space analyst. “The Chinese considered Russia as a potential partner until 2012 and have since stopped. Today, Russia cannot offer China anything in space,” he decides.
This withdrawal could actually turn out to be a “bargain” for the United States, concludes the site Axios. Collaborating with the Russians in space was increasingly “hard to sell” politically, after the invasion of Ukraine. And what looms on the horizon, once the ISS is retired within a decade at most, is the Moon again as “focal point of the geopolitical struggle in space”. For this new “Artemis” program, NASA is already collaborating with several partners. But not Russia.