Tag: Russia

Confirmed: Tomorrow’s OneWeb launch on Soyuz-2 rocket cancelled

8:57 am

Russia’s state-run press today confirmed that the launch tomorrow of another 36 OneWeb satellites on a Soyuz-2 rocket from Baikonur has been cancelled.

The decision was announced by Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin.

He also instructed to stop preparations for the launch of British OneWeb communications satellites from three spaceports. “All the launches from all Russian launch pads in Kourou, in Baikonur and at the Vostochny Cosmodrome involving the OneWeb company are to be stopped,” the Roscosmos CEO said.

Rogozin has already said that Russia will not refund OneWeb any money it paid for any of the cancelled launches. Nor will Russia return the OneWeb satellites in Kazakhstan to OneWeb.

Meanwhile, it appears that OneWeb is aggressively searching for new launch alternatives.

“We’re looking at U.S., Japanese and Indian options,” Chris McLaughlin, OneWeb’s chief of government, regulatory affairs and engagement, said March 3. “But in the first instance, we’re pointing to Ariane and saying you still owe us a number of launches.”

This statement implies that OneWeb is trying to get Arianespace to pick up the cost of any launches where Russia has been paid but will not launch. This way OneWeb won’t have to pay twice for the launch. This strategy will only work if the partners in the European Space Agency, which owns Arianespace, decide to cover OneWeb’s losses to Russia, which makes this a political decision.

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Russia blocks future rocket engine sales to U.S.

1:45 pm

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, today announced that Russia will no longer sell any rocket engines to U.S. companies.

The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the new policy in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel. “Today we have made a decision to halt the deliveries of rocket engines produced by NPO Energomash to the United States,” Rogozin said in the interview, according to Russia’s state press site Tass. “Let me remind you that these deliveries had been quite intensive somewhere since the mid-1990s.” Rogozin also added: “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what,” according to Reuters.

Russian engines are used on two American rockets, ULA’s Atlas-5 and Northrop Grumman’s Antares. The Atlas-4 however is being phased out, and has already received all the engines it needs for all of that rocket’s remaining flights. ULA plans to replace it with its new Vulcan rocket, using Blue Origin’s (long delayed) BE-4 engine.

Antares however is a more serious issue. Northrop Grumman uses this rocket to launch Cygnus freighters to ISS. It depends on two Russian engines for its Ukrainian-built first stage. The Ukraine War now probably makes building more Antares rockets impossible, which means at some point Northrop Grumman will no longer be able to supply ISS with cargo using Cygnus. Furthermore, NASA’s plan to use Cygnus’ engines to maintain ISS’s orbit will be impacted if Cygnus launches to ISS cease.

There is an option, though it too has issues. ULA has already launched one Cygnus to ISS using its Atlas-5. Though this rocket is going away, ULA could probably use its Vulcan instead — assuming Blue Origin finally gets the BE-4 engine operational so that Vulcan can finally launch.

Overall, Russia’s decision might cause a temporary blip in the American space effort, but if the government doesn’t get in the way I think that competition will force a solution. As Aesop said, necessity is the mother of invention.

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Launch of two South Korean satellites threatened by Russia’s Ukraine war

10:02 am

According to South Korean officials, the launch later this year of two new home-built satellites on Russian rockets is now unlikely because of the sanctions imposed because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

South Korea’s CAS500-2 remote sensing satellite is set to launch in the first half of this year on a Russian Soyuz rocket from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. South Korea’s KOMPSAT-6 multipurpose satellite, equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is due to launch in the second half of the year on a Russian Angara rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

“For now, nothing has changed to the plan,” Korea Aerospace Research Institute spokesman Roh Hyung-il told SpaceNews. “We are taking a close look at how the situation unfolds because it could have a significant impact on our missions.” He admitted that it’s “very likely” that the satellites won’t be launched as planned.

Those officials also said that losing Russia as a launch option will be a “serious blow” to South Korea’s entire space effort. I find that puzzling. There are plenty of other rocket companies now available. Why South Korea feels a need to depend on Russia seems short-sighted.

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OneWeb scraps further launches from Russia

9:12 am

OneWeb’s board of directors has voted to cancel all further launches of its satellites from Russia, refusing to meet Russia’s demand that the United Kingdom divest its half share in the company.

On Thursday, OneWeb said the company’s board had voted to suspend all launches from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, where the Russian spaceport operated by Roscosmos is based.

OneWeb didn’t elaborate on the vote. But the UK’s Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said his government had refused to divest from OneWeb, which received funding from British authorities in 2020 to stave off a bankruptcy. “The UK Government supports OneWeb’s decision,” Kwarteng tweeted on Thursday. “In light of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, we are reviewing our participation in all further projects involving Russian collaboration,” he added.

OneWeb hasn’t commented on the company’s contingency plans. But it’s almost certainly looking for a new launch partner. Russia’s Roscosmos previously helped OneWeb send up 428 of 648 satellites for its internet system, which is designed to serve enterprise users.

This decision, combined with Russia’s decision to suspend further Soyuz-2 rocket launches from French Guiana, essentially ends Russia’s partnership with Arianespace. It also likely ends for many years Russia’s place in the international launch market. OneWeb and Arianespace were its last remaining international customers, and their business is now gone. Even if the Ukraine War was settled today, I suspect neither would wish to renew their business with Russia.

As for OneWeb, it has a number of options in the growing launch market, with Arianespace’s rockets its most likely choice. Financially, the delay hurts them in two ways: First, they have paid Russia for a number of launches already, and Russia has said it will not refund the money. Thus, those launches will cost twice as much. Second, the delay hurts them in their effort to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

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Germany turns off its instrument on the Spektr-RG orbiting X-ray telescope

8:59 am

As part of Germany’s decision to break off all scientific cooperation with Russia in response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the Max Plank Institute has turned off its instrument on the Spektr-RG orbiting X-ray telescope.

Meanwhile, Roscosmos’ head, Dmitry Rogozin revealed he will demand compensation from Europe for its sanctions, including this shut down on Spektr-RG.

Europe’s sanctions cause real losses to Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos. The corporation will estimate them and demand a compensation from partners in Europe, Roscosmos’s press-service told TASS on Tuesday. “They have caused harm to the Spektr-RG laboratory’s research program by turning off one of the two telescopes. Their sanctions cause real losses to us. The damage will be estimated and a bill presented to the European side,” Roscosmos said.

It now appears that all the European cooperation with Russia in space is likely dead, at least until Russia gets out of the Ukraine.

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Rogozin halts launch of OneWeb satelllites planned for March 5

8:41 am

The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, today announced that he has halted all launch preparations for the March 5th launch of 36 OneWeb satellites on a Soyuz-2 rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan unless he received reassurances by March 4th that they would not be used for military purposes against Russia.

Roskosmos head Dmitry Rogozin announced that the mission would not proceed unless he received assurances by 21:30 Moscow Time on March 4 of non-military use of the satellites. Rogozin also demanded that the British government give up its stake in OneWeb.

I suspect Rogozin’s action here is a response to SpaceX’s delivery of Starlink terminals and the activation of its use for the Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion.

It is now certain that all the planned Soyuz-2 OneWeb launches this year will likely not occur, unless the situation in the Ukraine becomes settled quickly. This means OneWeb will have to scramble to find a new launch provider and pay for the launches a second time, since they have already paid Russia for, according to sources I spoke to last night, the next four Russian launches. It won’t get a refund from Russia, for sure.

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OneWeb launches from Russia threatened by Russian war in the Ukraine

9:34 am

While all signs suggest that this week’s launch from Kazakhstan of another 36 OneWeb satellites will proceed as planned, later Soyuz-2 launches either from Russia or French Guiana now seem doubtful.

Russia has suspended all further Soyuz-2 launches from French Guiana. And though all the Kazakhstan launches have been paid for and Russia appears willing to proceed, the war has created issues.

But even if Baikonur remains open, it is unclear whether export restrictions could affect the transport of OneWeb satellites from where they are made in Florida to the launchpad in Kazakhstan.

Another potential wrinkle, unrelated to sanctions: OneWeb has traditionally used An-124 aircraft that are operated and maintained by Ukraine’s Antonov to ship its spacecraft overseas. Availability issues aside, airspace restrictions over Europe could complicate otherwise routine logistics.

It will not surprise me if OneWeb will look for other launch services, though this will certainly damage its bottom line. First, it will likely not get a refund from Russia for the Soyuz-2 launches, which means it will pay twice for those launches if it switches to another rocket company. Second, the war is likely going to delay further launches regardless, which will delay roll out of its service and thus prevent it from obtaining customers.

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Russia suggests sanctions will force to end ISS partnership in ’24, rather than ’30

9:16 am

Because of the sanctions imposed by the Biden government due to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, officials at Roscosmos today suggested that they are considering ending their participation on ISS in 2024, rather than 2030 when NASA wants to de-orbit it.

“Roscosmos currently has a government permission for operating the ISS only until 2024. The issue of extending the agreement in the current conditions causes our skepticism,” the Roscosmos press office said.

The Russian space agency said it hoped that the US Department of State would soon stop its pressure on NASA and allow it to begin a dialogue with Russia. “If we do not come to an agreement, this will have its effect on the international piloted space program,” the press office said.

This really isn’t news. Even before the invasion, Russia had been uncertain on whether it would continue on ISS after ’24. It really needs ISS, as its own effort to build a Russian station has numerous problems. The Russians however also recognize that at least one of its modules on ISS, Zvezda, is failing. The station’s life is limited regardless.

Moreover, the U.S. is shifting away from government-owned assets in space. ISS’s replacement will be privately built and owned, and it is very very unlikely those private companies will partner with Russia.

The Russian partnership at ISS is ending no matter what. The Ukraine war is merely accelerating it.

As for maintaining ISS after ’24 should the Russians leave, NASA has some of the main Russian responsibilities well covered, due to private enterprise. It will test raising the station’s orbit shortly using the Northrop Grumman Cygnus freighter presently docked with the station, thus replacing Russia’s Progress freighter boosts. And the availability of Dragon and Starliner capsules will provide lifeboats for station crews.

The big question is that some of the life support equipment is provided by Russian modules. If the Russians detach the portion of the station, ISS will lose some of those capabilities. Hopefully Axiom’s first ISS module, due to launch by ’24, will replace those Russian assets.

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ESA: ExoMars launch in ’22 “very unlikely” due to Russian invasion of the Ukraine

9:05 am

In a statement yesterday condemning Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and responding to the Russians’ decision to suspend cooperation with Arianespace in French Guiana, the European Space Agency (ESA) also admitted, almost as an aside, that the ExoMars launch in ’22 to Mars is now “very unlikely.”

That mission is a partnership with Russia, where the Russians provide the rocket and the lander that will put Europe’s Franklin rover on the surface.

For the scientists running ExoMars, this delay only adds to their frustration, as the mission has already been delayed several times, most recently from a ’20 launch because the lander parachutes — being built by ESA — were not ready.

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First delivery of new Starlink terminals arrives in the Ukraine

5:09 pm

The first promised deliver by Elon Musk of new Starlink terminals arrived in the Ukraine today, only two days after promised.

Ukraine digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who tagged Musk in a request on Twitter on Saturday, posted that Starlink was “here” in Ukraine — with a photo showing more than two dozen boxes of the company’s user kits in the back of a truck.

Each Starlink kit includes a user terminal to connect to the satellites, a mounting tripod and a Wi-Fi router. It’s not known how many kits SpaceX is sending to support Ukraine.

Fedorov thanked Musk in his tweet; Musk responded: “you are most welcome.”

Ukraine-based Oleg Kutkov tweeted a screenshot of an internet speed test on Monday, saying “Starlink is working in Kyiv” and thanked SpaceX for the company’s support.

Two dozen Starlink terminals is only a drop in the bucket, but with a first delivery this quickly, many more are likely to follow, and make a significant difference in helping the Ukraine block Russia’s invasion.

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Russia suspends Soyuz-2 launches from French Guiana

10:05 am

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, announced today that Russia is suspending all Soyuz-2 rocket operations with Arianespace at French Guiana in response to the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) over Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roskosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners over organising space launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and withdrawing its technical personnel… from French Guiana,” Dmitry Rogozin, chief of the Russian space agency, said on messaging app Telegram.

The next planned Russian launch from French Guiana for Arianespace is set for April, launching two EU GPS-type satellites. That launch is now in question. Russia only has 87 engineers in French Guiana, but whether Europe can launch without them is unlikely.

Russia’s other Arianespace commercial customer, the satellite constellation OneWeb, is owned jointly by the United Kingdom and private Indian investors and has a launch scheduled from Kazakhstan in March. While Russia probably intends to proceed with that launch, Arianespace, the EU, and the UK government might respond to Russia’s actions today by cancelling it in turn.

Meanwhile, there are hints coming from the Ukraine that Russia’s invasion is beginning to bog down. If so, expect Putin to try to negotiate a quick settlement, whereby he insists that the Ukraine abandon its effort to join NATO and commit to allying itself with Russia. Based on the poor support NATO provided in this war, expect the Ukraine to agree in some manner.

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Space spat between Biden and Rogozin over Russian invasion of Ukraine

9:23 am

Yesterday saw harsh words expressed by both President Biden and the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, concerning the partnership of the two countries at ISS, with Biden imposing sanctions and noting these will specifically harm Russia’s space industry, and Rogozin responding by threatening to dump ISS on either a U.S. or European city.

In Biden’s statement, he said, “We estimate that we will cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports, and it will strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military. It will degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program,”

Rogozin’s response came in a series of tweets on Twitter, with his most bellicose statements as follows:

Do you want to destroy our cooperation on the ISS?

This is how you already do it by limiting exchanges between our cosmonaut and astronaut training centers. Or do you want to manage the ISS yourself? Maybe President Biden is off topic, so explain to him that the correction of the station’s orbit, its avoidance of dangerous rendezvous with space garbage, with which your talented businessmen have polluted the near-Earth orbit, is produced exclusively by the engines of the Russian Progress MS cargo ships. If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe? There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours. Are you ready for them?

Meanwhile, it isn’t Russia’s space industry that will suffer the most from this invasion, but Ukraine’s. For example, the American company Launcher, which has had a software team in the Ukraine, has moved most of that team to Bulgaria for their safety.

As a precaution given the escalating political situation, during the last few weeks, we successfully relocated our Ukraine staff to Sofia, Bulgaria, where we opened a new Launcher Europe office. We also invited their immediate family to join them in this move and funded their relocation expenses. We continue to encourage and support five of the support staff and one engineer who decided to remain in Ukraine.

The company’s press release makes it clear that it is no longer dependent in any way with facilities in the Ukraine.

Launcher’s actions will not be the last. Expect all Western commercial efforts linked to the Ukraine to break off ties in order to protect their investments. Moreover, if Russia should recapture the Ukraine entirely, it will likely not give much support to its space industry, as Roscosmos has developed its own Russian resources in the past two decades and will likely want to support those instead.

Thus, the expected destruction of that country’s aerospace industry by Russia’s invasion proceeds.

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The deadly impact of Russia’s Ukraine invasion on commercial space, on ISS, and beyond

11:50 am

The International Space Station
The Russian invasion might be signaling the end of the ISS partnership.

Though the international ramifications of the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia in the past week will be far reaching and hard to predict, we can get a hint by reviewing the impact on Russia’s long-standing partnership on ISS as well as the effect the invasion will have on a number of commercial enterprises dependent on both Russian and Ukrainian space rocketry.

The International Space Station

All signs so far from the western partners on ISS indicate that they are guardedly hopeful that the cooperation with Russia will continue unimpeded. According to two stories (here and here) describing a panel discussion today at George Washington University Space Policy Institute, state department officials expressed complete confidence that the partnership at ISS will continue without interruption, as it did in 2014 when Russia invaded the Crimea, taking it from the Ukraine. From the first link:
» Read more

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OneWeb sued by businessman for not paying him

9:38 am

An American businessman with ties in Kazakhstan and who claims he used those ties to obtain permission for OneWeb to launch its satellites there has now sued OneWeb.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze, an American-Georgian businessman, claims that he was not paid for arranging space rocket-launch rights for OneWeb in Kazakhstan. The company received public funding in 2020 after filing for bankruptcy and winning the support of Dominic Cummings, then the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser.

The $30m claim, filed in New York, alleges that Mr Rtskhiladze successfully lobbied the Kazakh government to allow OneWeb to launch satellites from Kazakhstan and operate a ground station for its internet network but was not paid. Mr Rtskhiladze alleges that OneWeb defrauded him by keeping him engaged with Kazakh officials but then terminated his services only after he demanded payment. His work led to “hundreds of millions of dollars in value” for OneWeb, he claims.

OneWeb denies these claims entirely. The claims do appear suspicious because Russia was doing the launching, and it has a solid lease to do so with Kazakhstan. Moreover, it is very doubtful Kazakhstan would do anything to threaten those launches, considering Russia was making a lot of money from them and would not take kindly to such an action.

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Rogozin’s salary rockets upward

9:24 am

The salary of Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos which runs Russia’s entire space industry, has grown from a mere $100K when he took over in 2018 to $1.3 million in 2020.

During the most recent year for which salary data is available, 2020, Rogozin was paid $1.3 million—and this does not include perks of the job, such as four vehicles, real estate holdings, spousal pay, and possibly off-the-books income. Before his imprisonment, Russian critic Alexei Navalny released an investigation of Rogozin and the corruption at Roscosmos that delves into some of these benefits.

Rogozin has seen a stunning rise in his fortunes since coming to Roscosmos. Before his move, he earned about $100,000 per year as deputy chairman in the Russian government. In 2018, his salary jumped to $513,000, and in 2019, it went up to $639,000.

By way of comparison, NASA, which has a budget several times larger than that of Roscosmos, pays Administrator Bill Nelson an annual salary of $185,100.

Rogozin is merely doing what all high level managers in Russia do. They get a job, and while there suck as much cash from it as they can before moving on or getting fired. The gigantic and fast increase in these numbers suggest Rogozin does not expect to remain in charge that much longer.

This pattern is very similar to what happened in the Roman Empire. The Caesar in Rome would appoint governors to the various outlying provinces in Germany, France, England, and the Middle East, who would then skim off for themselves as much cash from tax revenues as they could get away with, then retire back to Rome to live the good life. Meanwhile, governance in those provinces would suffer, to the point that eventually the empire fell.

Rogozin appears to be doing the same in Roscosmos, which suggests not much will come from its many projects to come up with new rockets, spacecraft, and space stations in the coming years.

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Russia schedules July 23rd for launch of its first unmanned lunar lander in decades

9:37 am

The new colonial movement: The Russia design bureau that is building Luna-25, Russia’s first unmanned lunar lander since the 1970s, has announced that it is targeting July 23, 2022 for launch.

The lunar mission will be launched atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East. Under the lunar project, the Luna-25 automatic station will be launched for studies in the area of the lunar south pole. The lander is set to touch down in the area of the Boguslawsky crater.

Boguslawsky crater is about 125 miles from the nearest known permanently shadowed craters, and about 250 miles north of the south pole. It is thus not landing in what is presently thought to be the most valuable real estate on the Moon because of the possible presence of water ice, though there might be other resources at Boguslawsky that interest the Russians.

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