STORY – Europe wants to exchange Russian launchers grounded in Guyana for satellites stranded in Baikonur.
Exchange of Russian rockets for British satellites. This is neither an ad posted on the Boncoin site to barter models nor a joke from astronautics students. For months, Europe has been trying – very discreetly – to recover from Russia a batch of OneWeb satellites, stranded on the Russian space base in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, since the invasion of Ukraine in February. On the negotiating table: the return to Russia of the equivalent of 2.5 Soyuz rockets (in the form of stages, fairings, etc.), abandoned in Guyana by teams from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, when They hurriedly packed their bags to return to Moscow, on the orders of the Kremlin.
“It’s a matter between governments, therefore between Paris and Moscow, for the Soyuz rockets. There are discussions on that. But ESA is also well coordinated with the French government and Arianespace,” explained, this Monday, Josef Aschbacher, the director general of the European Space Agency…
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