The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, responded to US and European sanctions imposed on the state corporation after the start of the Russian special operation in Donbass. Thus, Russia has already suspended rocket launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and will stop deliveries of engines to the United States.
The restrictive measures of the West were announced on February 24. According to US President Joe Biden, sanctions on the rocket, space and other industries will cut off more than half of high-tech imports to Russia. The head of the United States added that the restrictions would reduce Moscow’s ability to compete economically and deal a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term strategic ambitions.
This will deal a blow to their ability to continue to modernize the aircraft. This will harm their aerospace industry, including the space program.
Following the American side, on February 25, sanctions against Roskosmos were imposed by the European Union (EU), which, in particular, turned off one of the two telescopes of the Russian astrophysical observatory Spektr-RG. At the same time, the European Space Agency (ESA) recognized the launch of the Martian mission ExoMars jointly with Russia as unlikely.
Answer to Europe
In response to the freezing of cooperation between the European Union and Russia, Roscosmos suspended the launches of Russian Soyuz-2 rockets from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana. During the next launch of Soyuz-2, two satellites of the Galileo navigation system were to be launched from Kourou.
In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roskosmos suspends cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and withdraws its technical personnel, including the consolidated launch crew, from French Guiana
Later, the state corporation said that if Russia does not receive guarantees on March 4 by 21:30 Moscow time that the launched British OneWeb spacecraft will not be used for military purposes by Europe and the United States, then the Soyuz-2 rocket installed on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome , will be removed.
In connection with the hostile position of the UK towards Russia, another condition for the launch of spacecraft on March 5 is the withdrawal of the British government from the shareholders of OneWeb
Roscosmos clarified that the refusal to launch would not lead to damage to the state corporation, since the creation of Soyuz-2 rockets and Fregat upper stages was paid for.
Subsequently, OneWeb shareholders decided to refuse to launch their satellites from Baikonur, which were indeed planned to be partially used for military purposes.
Answer to the States
The Russian response to the US sanctions was to cut off the supply of rocket engines.
First of all, these are the RD-180 engine, on which, like a main engine, the Atlas-5 rocket flies, and the RD-181 engine, which is used by the first stage of the Antares rocket
The head of Roskosmos called on the American side to now fly into space “on their brooms.” In addition, Russia broke off cooperation with the United States on experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) and the Venera-D program.
Consequences of Russian sanctions for Europe
In 2022, it was planned to conduct two Soyuz-2 launches from Kourou with four satellites of the Galileo navigation system. In 2023, ESA wanted to conduct two launches of a Russian rocket – with the EarthCARE Earth exploration mission and with the Euclid infrared space telescope. In the same year, France planned to launch the Composante Spatiale Optique 3 (CSO-3) reconnaissance satellite on Soyuz-2.
Existing European launch vehicles will not be able to replace the Russian rocket, since, for example, the light Vega rocket is not enough to launch two Galileo spacecraft, while launches of the heavy Ariane 5 rocket, which is being decommissioned, are already planned. The Ariane 6 carrier of two modifications, which can replace the Soyuz-2 and Ariane 5, will not be put into operation until at least 2023.
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Consequences of Russian sanctions for the United States
Unlike Europe, the sanctions of Roskosmos had practically no effect on the United States.
Russia handed over the last RD-180s to the United States in April 2021. In total, for more than 20 years, 122 commercial RD-180 engines were sent to the American side.
According to the press secretary of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) – a joint venture between the American companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing – Jessica Rai, the RD-180 engines of heavy Atlas V rockets bought from Russia, which remained with the United States, are “securely stored” at the plant in Decatur ( state of Alabama).
We have agreements for technical support and spare parts, but if this support is not available, we can still safely and successfully run our program.
According to ULA Executive Director Tori Bruno, the company he leads has been using the RD-180 for many years and is not dependent on Energomash for technical support services. According to him, the US went to buy the RD-180 from Russia because they wanted to avoid leaking missile technology to Iran or North Korea after the Cold War.
ULA currently has contracts for about 25 Atlas V launches through 2025. ULA plans to switch from the Atlas V rocket to the Vulcan with the BE-4 methane engine instead of the kerosene RD-180. The first Vulcan launches may take place as early as this year, but will most likely be postponed to 2023.
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In addition to the RD-180, the Russian side is supplying the US with RD-181 engines for the Antares medium rocket, which is used to launch the Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS. The Antares-Cygnus bundle can be relatively easily replaced by the Falcon 9 reusable heavy rocket and SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft.
What’s next?
In an interview with Russian Space magazine, Rogozin stated that the sanctions regime, introduced back in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, was one of the reasons for the postponement of launches of a number of Russian satellites in 2021.
The still remaining dependence of our industry on imported components, which has become a burdensome burden against the backdrop of the most severe sanctions against Russia. This is especially true for microelectronics of the Space category.
According to him, in order to reduce dependence, the state corporation “several years ago formed a portfolio of orders for domestic microelectronics enterprises for priority components.” Rogozin noted that the state corporation has begun “using universal technological and circuit solutions”, when, for example, instead of choosing “up to nine different on-board computers”, “two or three universal computers” are used.
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After the imposition of sanctions due to the Russian special operation in the Donbass, the head of Roskosmos announced that the state corporation would direct the resources released after the suspension of the participation of Western partners in joint projects with Russia to create defense systems.
The main design, technological and financial resources released from joint international research projects with the United States and the European Union will now be directed to the creation of exclusively defense and dual-use space systems
Rogozin noted that the state corporation will reconsider its priorities and focus on achieving full import independence in space instrumentation.
Thus, at present, the only area of cooperation between the West and Russia in the field of astronautics remains the ISS, but even here a technical divorce is theoretically possible.
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