Roscosmos, Rocketry, and the Return
Troy Morris, Director of Operations
6 minute read
The Apollo-Soyuz crew, from left: American astronauts "Deke" Slayton, Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Leonov, Valeriy Kubasov. Credits: NASA
Since the Soviet Union kicked off the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik, rocketry and space have been a continuing area of development and excellence with an international reliance on specific systems. In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many countries and companies have reevaluated their relationship with Russia and their rockets. While international sanctions and armed conflicts are ongoing, the history of human spaceflight continues, at times in awkward proximity to world political events.
While not the first rocket launched from the storied Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Soviet-designed Soyuz family of rockets have been the most frequent, with over 1,900 flights since debuting in 1966. Soyuz, meaning “union,” has been a reliable transport, used multiple times as an alternative to the American Space Shuttle program. During the grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet following the Columbia disaster, and following the retirement of the fleet in 2011, the Soyuz was the only means used by NASA to reach the International Space Station (ISS). In 2020, the U.S. Commercial Crew Development program succeeded in re-establishing the American ability to independently reach the ISS with the SpaceX Crew Dragon mission.
In that meantime, the Soyuz has carried 42 successful crewed launches, with only one aborted launch after two minutes due to a rocket booster separation failure. This long history of success, in addition to uncrewed launches, elevated the Soyuz as a dependable vehicle to access space. This success was a significant reason for the 2005 agreement between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos to begin equatorial launches of the Soyuz from French Guiana. The first operational launch occurred in 2011 with the spaceport location allowing sun-synchronous orbits for payloads. This same facility launched the James Webb Space Telescope on December 25, 2021, a Christmas Day present to astronomers, and a story for another day.
This U.S.-Russia cooperation has origins in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission (the first crewed international mission), which led to the 11 missions of the Shuttle-Mir program and the current ISS, involving nations beyond just the United States and Soviet Union/Russia. The ISS is a multinational collaborative project with five agencies: NASA of the United States, Roscosmos of Russia, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) of Japan, ESA of European members, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) of Canada. The ISS is segmented into the Russian Orbital Segment, composed of six modules, and the United States Orbital Segment, composed of ten modules, with support of the U.S. segment through NASA, JAXA, ESA, and CSA. With Roscosmos operating six modules and a significant segment of the entire station, it is important to understand this successor to the Soviet space program.
The State Space Corporation “Roscosmos” was formed on February 25, 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Roscosmos was originally known as the Russian Space Agency before restructuring in 1999 and in 2004 created the Russian Aviation and Space Agency separate from the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). In 2015, Roscosmos was merged with a Russian government corporation, re-nationalizing the agency into its current form. Throughout these changes of nations, structure, and budgets, Roscosmos continues its legacy of many space firsts, including the first satellite, first astronaut corps, first human spaceflight, and first space station. With the planned decommissioning of the ISS in the next decade, Roscosmos is planning the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) space station for completion by 2035 and initial launches in 2025.
Existing as a national agency and launch provider, Roscosmos exists as a colleague to organizations like NASA and JAXA while a competitor to companies like SpaceX and Arianespace. These last two have been of particular note as the previous international cooperation celebrated in aerospace has been tested and at times splintered, such as by the military action of Russia invading Ukraine. In the flurry of sanctions, severed business deals, and suspended operations related to the attack, there are still developing stories as of the writing of this column. The United States and allied countries have declared sweeping sanctions on Russian industries, including restrictions on the purchase of goods from Russia or otherwise supporting their space industry.
One of the most apparent of these business moves since the military action began has concerned OneWeb, a satellite internet company intending to provide global coverage. The United Kingdom has a significant stake in OneWeb, which was due to launch 36 satellites aboard a Soyuz to join the previous 400 OneWeb satellites launched by Russian rockets since 2019. Following the invasion of Ukraine, Roscosmos requested that the United Kingdom divest from OneWeb, and that OneWeb guarantee their services to be only for non-military usage before Roscosmos would allow the Soyuz to launch with the OneWeb payload. OneWeb and the United Kingdom rejected these demands, suspending the planned launch and leaving the 36 satellites in limbo. OneWeb has announced a launch agreement with SpaceX, a surprising report because of SpaceX’s competing Starlink system. For SpaceX and Roscomos competitor Arianespace, the invasion on February 24 has already caused concern far from the European continent.
While the Soyuz missions have been successful from the Guiana spaceport as previously mentioned, Russia suspended their cooperation with the French-operated spaceport two days after the Russian invasion, leaving planned launches like Galileo navigation satellites without a sufficient launch vehicle. These sizable payloads could be launched on the capable Ariane 5, only Arianespace has allocated all remaining Ariane 5 launches and the replacement Ariane 6 won’t be available until after test flights in 2022. As of this writing, the ESA and Arianespace have been unwilling to announce a partnership with SpaceX and instead are focusing on their own abilities and missions.
Beyond these specific deals, there have also been discussions relating to the largest symbol of international cooperation next to the Olympic Games - the ISS. Following a German statement denouncing the attacks on Ukraine, Russia has ceased joint ISS experiments with Germany. The day following the invasion, the Roscosmos Director General insinuated Russian withdrawal from the ISS, potentially sooner than the agreed 2024 period of support. With the Russian module of the ISS, Zvezda, providing regular orbit-keeping thrust, the Director General’s comments also questioned the potential of an unplanned de-orbit of the ISS without Russian involvement, long before the planned deorbit of the ISS in January 2031. Orbit-keeping thrust has been and can be provided by visiting spacecraft to the ISS, which could be limited without Russian cooperation for Soyuz launches. Already there are concerns that the planned return of an American astronaut, Mark Vande Hei, aboard a Soyuz may be complicated or met with difficulty. As of mid-March, the March 30 return mission has been supported by both Roscosmos and NASA officials, with a March 18 arrival of three Russian cosmonauts having been completed without any undue news.
While the interdependency of all involved nations in the ISS is appearing stronger than military maneuvering on the Earth below it, recent history shows a comparison of reactions and sanctions in another portion of Ukraine. In February 2014, the Russian Federation annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and the United States and allies announced a progressing series of sanctions, the largest since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These actions were restricted, however, with at least one limiting factor being the outright reliance on Soyuz launches to access and support the ISS. With the current availability of American commercial launch providers, U.S. officials can now enact stricter sanctions without denial to the space station. How this new dynamic differs from the actions of other actors in 2014 vs 2022 will continue to be seen.
However, as was clearly stated by many countries and organizations, including KMI, following the Russian anti-satellite (ASAT) test on November 15, 2021, space is a shared resource and continued destructive orbital actions are, “dangerous and irresponsible.” While the 2013 science fiction film Gravity may have predicted a Russian ASAT, the 2021 threat to the ISS was thankfully diminished from the destruction in the movie, yet far more real than any humanitarian, scientist, or space-aficionado would wish. The ISS crew was forced to shelter in “safe haven” procedures aboard the docked Soyuz and Crew Dragon spacecraft following the ASAT, and the risk of debris collision with the ISS was calculated by NASA to have doubled.
As humanity continues our quest into orbit and beyond, particular care must be taken to extend the best principles, actions, and intentions of our world. The Space Race was launched from national pride and envy, but was capped with peaceful missions on the Moon. The Apollo missions even concluded with joining the Soyuz, leading along the path to the ISS today. The words inscribed on the first lunar lander should stand not only as a monument to the successes of the past but as a goal to return to for the future on Earth and beyond: “WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.”
Apollo 11 plaque with the inscription "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind" in capital letters, photographed by Neil Armstrong at Tranquility Base on the lunar surface. Credits: NASA
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