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Russia to lose seventeen launches due to Ukraine sanctions

This article at Space News today provides a nice summary of the number of launches that Russia’s Roscosmos will likely lose in the next three years due to the break off of commercial operations against that country because of its invasion of the Ukraine.

According to the article, Russia will lose sixteen launches. The list however misses one South Korean satellite scheduled for launch on an Angara rocket later this year. The total breakdown of this lost business is therefore as follows:

13 launches lost in 2022
3 launches lost in 2023
1 launch lost in 2024

The entities impacted are as follows:

Government launches:
Europe: six launches in ’22 and ’23, totaling eight satellites
South Korea: two launches in ’22
Sweden: one launch in ’22

Commercial launches:
OneWeb: six launches in ’22, totaling 199 satellites
Axelspace: one launch, totaling four satellites
Synspective: one launch

If the Ukraine War were to end today, it is possible that most of the government launches would be reinstated. The commercial companies however are almost certainly going to find other launch providers, no matter what. OneWeb for example is hardly going to trust its business to Russia after that country cancelled the launches and (at least at this moment) has confiscated the already delivered satellites.

If the war continues for another two or three months, then all this business will vanish for good, as alternative rocket companies will likely be found.

This list however does reveal one interesting fact. It appears that very few private companies have been interested in buying Russian launch services, with or without the Ukraine War. Most of Russia’s international customers have been other governments. Even OneWeb falls partly into this category, as it is half owned by the United Kingdom.

This fact suggests that Russia’s product has simply not been competitive against the new commercial market. The governments meanwhile probably had political motives in addition to economics to throw their business Russia’s way. Those political motives are now gone.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

8 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    Hey, Rogozin, you’re in a war that is sucking millions upon millions of (almost worthless – it’s trading at less than a penny per) rubles out of the treasury every day, the economy is tanking (speaking of which – American Javelins are doing a Jay-Oh-Bee on your obsolete T-72’s and the T-90 is only an update of that. No one has seen the vaunted “best tank in the world”, the T-14 – of which you can only afford a couple of dozen), your country’s international trade has disappeared overnight, your oligarchs are on the run and desperately trying find a port for their yachts., and, to top it off, your aero-space industry is in tailspin and without foreign cash, Roscosmos is going into a death spiral.

    If you get down on your knees and beg, we might lend you a broomstick. Not.

  • LocalFulff

    Angara is being built in Russia without dependency on Ukraine. And since Russia is winning this war in a very one sided way, they will control the Ukrainian rocket industry within the next few weeks as the war has ended.

  • Col Beausabre

    Who’s going to use it? And Russia can’t even afford to build its vaunted T-14 tank, they’re gonna have money for anything but a bare minimum space program while the West gets further and further ahead. I read a debate by two columnists on whether Putin has set Russia back by a generation or a century.

    As to who is winning, don’t count your chickens. Wars have a habit of turning out unexpectedly.

  • LocalFulff

    Russia is extremely rich in natural resources of all kinds and have become best friends with the world’s industrially most powerful country, China, who crave to import them. And their industry produces all kinds of weapons systems. The pipeline “Power of Siberia” is under construction from the Arctic Kara Sea to China, ready in three years.

    If you want to hear of countries that are unable to organize a military defense, hear this link, it’s great fun! Germany’s army commander tweeted on the same day as Russia invaded Ukraine:
    “- When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the German army had no ability at all to assist the defense of any other NATO country.”
    And that is even more true for their tiny air force (48 modern air crafts) an non-existing navy. Things have not improved in any way since then. He continues (he wrote many interesting things):
    “- Relations between the military and the politicians are at their worst now since the 1920s.”
    (When the military was dissatisfied with the Versailles treaty and many soldiers waged a civil war against political opponents…) Germany’s naval commander got fired a few months ago for saying that Russia will not invade if only we guarantee that Ukraine nwever will join NATO, so we should do that.

    In France 1,000 officers the other year wrote an open letter calling Macron a traitor for having demilitarized the country. Britain has a strong navy and 100 air crafts, but only two brigades which are incapable of any operation larger than retaking the Falklands from Argentina. The US is the only NATO country with a useful military force, and they have still lost EVERY war since the 1960s! Greece and Turkey have big militaries, but their purpose is to guard against each other. Turkey closed the Dardanelles for other NATO ships (and refuse any sanctions against Russia)! NATO is a joke, and compare that with Russia’s great victory in Ukraine now.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUElJY4xNQ

  • LocalFulff

    Here’s a Ukraina war related space news:
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1502344123222827009
    Thank God for SpaceX! Had this happened just a few years ago, that astronaut would’ve been screwed.

  • Edward

    Last Friday, Eric Burger had a different look at news of a possible stranded astronaut:
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/after-two-weeks-of-war-the-international-space-station-flies-on/

    One of Burger’s points is that even if there were such a threat to strand an American on ISS, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei would still have four others with him on the ISS. However, what he does not mention is that if the Soyuz comes back without Hei, there will one fewer seats for return than people on ISS, meaning that if an emergency occurred onboard, there would be one person without a seat for safe return to Earth. Like the Titanic, there would be fewer “lifeboats” than needed for everyone aboard. This will be the case until another spacecraft is launched with an empty seat.

  • Jeff Wright

    Korolev must be spinning in his grave over what Putin has done to his legacy

  • pzatchok

    Russia can not afford a space program.
    Heck they can barely afford to keep their nuclear weapons operational. Hell most might not even be operational.
    Half of their military budget goes to the Navy and look at its condition.

    Russian
    1 Aircraft carrier
    2 Battlecruisers
    3 Cruisers
    10 Destroyers
    11 Frigates
    81-83 Corvettes
    21 Landing ship tanks (LST)
    40 Landing craft
    18 Special-purpose ships
    3 Patrol ships
    56 Patrol boats
    49 Mine countermeasures vessels
    12 Ballistic missile submarines (SSBN)
    10 Cruise missile submarines (SSGN)
    14 Nuclear Attack submarines (SSN)
    22 Diesel Attack submarines (SSK)
    12 Special-purpose submarines

    And Russia’s idea of active ships is iffy at best. Basically if it can put to sea its counted as ready for battle. Even if thats all it can do is sail about.

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