Four Americans, one German and two Russians continue to live and work together around 400 kilometers above the earth – but how long will the peace on the ISS last?
Moscow/Washington – Experienced NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn is not easily upset. “The cooperation here is essential for our survival,” the 61-year-old clarified a few days ago while floating in the weightlessness of the International Space Station ISS.
A student from the US state of Ohio had previously asked the astronaut, who is on the ISS for the third time, via video message how it actually works – in such a small space with such different colleagues. “We practice that before we fly, and you get to know your colleagues really, really well.”
Together with Marshburn on the ISS are currently the German astronaut Matthias Maurer, the NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron – as well as the Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrow and Anton Schkaplerow. For several months, the seven colleagues have been living and working together in the outpost of humanity in space. However, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February and the sanctions that followed, the question has become more and more pressing: Can Russian-American cooperation on the ISS, in which the space agencies of Japan, Canada and Europe are also involved, be so? continue to exist?
Nasa is deliberately reserved – not only via Astronaut Marshburn. The head of NASA’s manned space program, Kathy Lueders, said at a press conference that the situation was being monitored, but that ISS operations were continuing “normally”. The teams from both countries are in constant contact. “We have operated in such circumstances before and both sides have always behaved very professionally.” Russia and the US maintained their “peaceful relations in space” – the end of which would be a “sad day”.
“Let them fly into space on their broomsticks”
Different sounds come from Russia. Although the Russian space agency Roskosmos also emphasizes its willingness to continue cooperation in space, it also warns the USA of a possible termination of this and even paints the horror scenario of a crash of the ISS on the wall. In addition, Russia stopped supplying rocket engines to the United States. “Let them fly into space on their broomsticks,” commented Roscosmos boss Dmitry Rogozin maliciously.
A decoupling of the American and Russian parts of the station is even being discussed in the Russian media. Such a thing is possible within a year, the scientific director of the Moscow Institute for Space Policy, Ivan Moiseyev, told the newspaper “Izvestia”. However, Roskosmos has so far shied away from a definitive withdrawal of Russia from the ISS, which had already been threatened in the past. Just last year, Russia sent an expensive research module to the ISS.
But there are further concrete cuts: After the German Aerospace Center (DLR) declared the cooperation with Russia to be over, Moscow also terminated the cooperation. In response to the EU sanctions, Russia also, in an unprecedented step, withdrew its personnel from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, the European Space Agency’s only access to the cosmos.
For its part, ESA is examining further cooperation in view of the sanctions and has to make “many difficult decisions”, said Director General Josef Aschbacher. The European-Russian space project “Exomars” to search for traces of life on the red planet seems to have receded into the distant future.
“It is simply unimaginable what is happening here”
Esa canceled a question and answer session with the German astronaut Maurer on the ISS. “I can tell you that the astronauts work very well together,” emphasized Aschbacher to Südwestrundfunk. “Matthias expressed the hope that we earthlings would get along here on the ground because it is simply unimaginable what is happening here, just seen from space.” There is nothing official about whether the war on board the ISS is an issue to experience.
Despite many conflicts between Moscow and Washington, space travel has always been considered one of the few areas in which cooperation between the two countries has worked. Even during the Cold War, the then blocs in East and West had worked together in space – for example when docking an Apollo and a Soyuz spacecraft in 1975.
The billion-dollar project ISS, permanently inhabited by astronauts for more than 20 years, is the flagship of this cooperation. The outpost of mankind around 400 kilometers above the earth is considered a peace project. At the turn of the year, NASA agreed that the ISS would continue to operate until 2030. The Russian side has not yet approved this extension – at the beginning of the year Roskosmos was still promoting it, but that has now changed with the sanctions. Experts fear a permanent loss of trust between the two countries.
However, the Ukraine war also casts a different light on short-term ISS plans. Several field trips are planned for the coming weeks. In addition – on Maurer’s 52nd birthday on March 18th – a new three-man Russian crew and later the first completely private crew with the “Axiom-1” mission from the USA will arrive at the ISS. Normally, newcomers are greeted warmly at the lock – but now Russian-American jubilation scenes in space would almost be a political statement.
At the end of March, Nasa astronaut Vande Hei, together with cosmonauts Dubrov and Shkaplerov, is scheduled to return to Earth in a Russian Soyuz capsule. This plan will be adhered to for the time being, said Nasa manager Lueders. However, the USA would have to take a detour to pick up their astronaut after landing in Kazakhstan. Russia and the US have closed their airspace to each other’s planes.
Nasa manager Lueders had announced that they were looking for possible “operational flexibilities”, among other things with regard to a possibly necessary elevation of the station by the USA. Russian spacecraft docked at the ISS are currently being used for course corrections. SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who sends astronauts and supplies to the ISS with his “Dragon” freighters, has already mentioned his space company as possible support. However, Lueders also emphasized: “It would be very difficult for us to continue the operation on our own. The ISS is based on international cooperation – with mutual dependencies.” dpa
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