![]() ![]() ![]() "No changes are planned to the agency's support for ongoing in-orbit and ground-station operations."īut while there’s no reason to be anxious about a giant space station falling on your head anytime soon, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having real consequences for the space sector. "The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space operations," NASA said in a statement. NASA responded to Rogozin’s recent tweets by reiterating that all of the station’s international partners, including Roscosmos, are working to maintain "the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station." Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, a US-based spacecraft, has started carrying crews to and from the station, beginning in 2019, ending Russia’s monopoly on rides to the ISS. Perhaps most infamously, Rogozin threatened to withhold Russian rocket rides to the ISS after he was personally targeted by sanctions in the wake of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, proclaiming that American astronauts could try to reach the station by trampoline.Īt that time, Russia was the only nation capable of ferrying crews to and from the ISS, but the nation never came close to making good on Rogozin’s threat of refusing passage to the station. It’s also worth noting that Rogozin has a long history of bombastic statements, especially in response to sanctions. More importantly, it is incredibly unlikely that Russia would take such drastic action given that the station is currently home to two of its own cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, and contains decades of Russian scientific investment. The good news is, though, that while it’s true that Russia controls the ISS propulsion system, even if it abandoned its responsibility to keep the station aloft, the crew, spacecraft, and people on Earth would not be in danger as it would take possibly years to deorbit, according to The Verge, allowing for ample time to come up with a solution. Such an inflammatory threat no doubt adds to the atmosphere of anxiety produced by the Russian invasion and its possible consequences. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect?” “There is also the option of dropping the 500-ton structure to India and China. “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit that falls into the United States or Europe?” he continued. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |