Roscomos puts the squeeze on Ukraine
Two more stories this week provide additional evidence that Roscosmos, the new Russian government-run space corporation that controls Russia’s entire space industry, intends to eliminate its dependence on any foreign contributions, even if that contribution comes from the former Soviet province of Ukraine.
- Russian space agency suspends Dnepr carrier rocket project
- Russia to Stop Buying Ukrainian Space Rockets
In the first story, Roscosmos ends the commercial use of the Dnepr anti-ballistic missile, built originally in the Ukraine. In the second story Roscosmos makes it very clear that it will focus on using its Russia-made Angara rocket rather than depend on the Ukrainian Zenit, even though Zenit is what the Roscosmos-owned Sea Launch platform was designed to use and Angara is far from operational.
The main result of these decisions will be the bankrupt many Ukrainian space companies. Whether it will bring more business to Angara, however, remains to be seen. Angara has only had one orbital launch, and has hardly tested its many different configurations. At this stage it is highly unlikely that the commercial customers who have depended on Dnepr and Zenit will flock to it, especially since they now have other competitive options available in the west.
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Not surprising considering Russia and Ukraine are currently at war.
Disconcerting, as Iran may offer jobs to those rocket scientists.
Ukraine’s engineering use to be moving force behind the black of USSR space efforts. It’s all gone now. To be fair, P. Poroshenko, by one of his first orders as president, prohibited export of dual-use equipment to Russia. Yuzhmash legally can not ship anything to Russians anyway. It’s nightmare to fill the BOM kits for Russian engineers. BTW, Yuzhmash is shutdown till March and plan to use this high-tech space firm as tanks and tractors repair facilities is in the works by the Ukraine government.