Russian Invasion and its impact on Space Launches

[Grendal]

Looks like the Soyuz dumpster fire over the last few weeks is fixin' to turn into a full on Clown Show.

Interesting times, these.

Well, here we go...

AST SpaceMobile books more SpaceX rides months after canceling Soyuz reservation

AST SpaceMobile books more SpaceX rides months after canceling Soyuz reservation

spacenews.com

 

[ecarfan]

The commentary section was speculating that it is somewhat likely the Russian space program might be completely dead. What a sad tragedy that will be.

In the near term it does appear that Roscosmos will only be launching Russian payloads and cosmonauts, which is only a very small fraction of the global launch market. It’s sad because there are so many talented and dedicated Russian aerospace engineers. So Roscosmos will continue to shrink and require more and more government support to keep functioning. We know that Putin has been very dissatisfied with the state of the Russian space program; how is he going to tolerate it requiring more and more money while not accomplishing anything new? Statements about how Roscosmos is going to develop a reusable rocket are likely just a fantasy.

Eric Berger just published this article refuting the rumor that Roscosmos was going to “strand” an American astronaut on the ISS who is scheduled to return on a Soyuz at the end of this month.

Quote: “In recent days there have been a number of stories about Russian "threats" to abandon NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on the space station. Vande Hei is scheduled to return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule at the end of this month, landing in Kazakhstan. NASA officials are expected to be there to greet him and bring him back to the United States… there are simply no indications this will happen. The first step toward trouble in the ISS partnership probably would entail Russia recalling its cosmonauts training for future missions in the United States or NASA recalling its flight controllers in Moscow and astronauts at Star City. That has not happened.”

And as he points out, with Crew Dragon flying regularly and reliably NASA could arrange to get that astronaut home if needed.

 

[Grendal]

Scott Kelly is taking big shots at Rogozin:

War of words between Russian space chief and retired astronaut – Spaceflight Now

 

[bxr140]

Well, here we go...

AST SpaceMobile books more SpaceX rides months after canceling Soyuz reservation

AST SpaceMobile books more SpaceX rides months after canceling Soyuz reservation

spacenews.com

AST is certainly one of the more aspirational companies out there...

 

[ecarfan]

News story from TASS, the official Russian news agency, presumably to dispel rumors and push back against that stupid tweet by Rogozin.
Roscosmos to bring US astronaut back to Earth March 30 as scheduled

Note how this news story makes it sounds like Rogozin’s tweet is all the fault of Fox News.

Quote:

MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos has never given its partners the slightest chance to doubt its reliability. The US astronaut due to return to Earth soon will do so as scheduled on board Russia’s space capsule vehicle on March 30, the space corporation said on Monday.

Earlier, some US media expressed doubts if Russia would agree to take US astronaut Mark Vande Hei back to Earth amid the sanctions imposed on Russia over the situation in Ukraine.

"US astronaut Mark Vande Hei will travel back home in the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft together with Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov on March 30. Roscosmos has never let anybody doubt its reliability as a partner," the Roscosmos’ press-service has said.

The corporation stressed that the ISS crew’s safety has always been its top priority.


Earlier, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin uploaded to his Telegram channel an extract from a Fox News broadcast claiming that Russia might leave the US astronaut in space.

The Soyuz MS-19 space capsule with Anton Shkaplerov, Pyotr Dubrov and Mark Vande Hei is expected to land on March 30. Dubrov and Vande Hei arrived on the ISS in the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft together with Oleg Novitsky. This descent module brought back to Earth the two feature film crew members - actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko, who had arrived on the ISS together with Anton Shkaplerov in the Soyuz MS-19 on October 5.

Of course, TASS is really the “official lying agency” of Russia; I am not assuming that what TASS says is true or an accurate prediction of future events.

 

[bxr140]

So an interesting twist to this mess is that, historically, big satellites basically all use either Ukrainian cargo planes (Antonov) or Russian cargo planes (Ilyushin) to get from their processing facility to the launch facility. (Sometimes satellites built in and launching in the US will travel by road, and occasionally DOD sats will use American military cargo transport). That’s causing a massive logistics problem and may impact launches, beyond all the other BS that might impact launches…

Marginally related, the one An-225 seems like it’s irreparably destroyed. (Nobody used that one for space related stuff)

 

[ggr]

Marginally related, the one An-225 seems like it’s irreparably destroyed. (Nobody used that one for space related stuff)

That's if you don't count the original reason it was built, which was to transport Buran.

 

[Grendal]

Go cosmonauts!

Russian cosmonauts arrive at ISS in colours of Ukraine flag

Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station last night in flight suits made in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, in what appeared to be a daring statement against the war.Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhs

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[ecarfan]

I don’t know any other way to interpret that except as a subtle protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

To get those non-standard flight suits made and onboard would involve many other people besides just the three cosmonauts.

That is quite a statement. Those guys, and everyone else involved, are risking their careers in Roscosmos.

 

[ecarfan]

Eric Berger has published an article in Ars Technica giving his perspective on the yellow & blue flight suit issue. He says it is “improbable“ that they are a protest against the Ukraine invasion because:

…the flight suits for these missions are packed literally months in advance of a launch, so they would have had to have been made in 2021, long before an invasion seemed imminent. Secondly, many—if not most—cosmonauts appear to support the invasion of Ukraine.

Berger gives three possible explanations for the suits:

• It's a coincidence: The official explanation… "sometimes yellow is just yellow." Roscosmos noted that the three cosmonauts had all attended Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which has school colors similar to the flight suits. This is the simplest explanation and therefore the most likely. Working against this theory is that the color of the flight suits is much closer to the yellow and blue of the Ukraine flag than the technical school.
• It really was a protest: If the cosmonauts were truly trying to send a signal to the Russian people, wearing the colors of Ukraine would be a powerful way to show solidarity... However, orchestrating the recent fabrication of these flight suits, and getting them surreptitiously packed on board Soyuz during a late-load process, would have required a lot of traceable activity in Baikonur.
• Failed propaganda: Finally, there is a darker theory. It's possible that the yellow flight suits were a failed propaganda effort by the Russian government. As a Twitter user noted Friday, the launch date for this Soyuz mission was March 18, the day when Russia "celebrates" its annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It seems possible that a ceremony had been planned to celebrate the Russian "de-Nazification" of Ukraine or some other nonsense, but due to the failure of the Russian military to quickly install a puppet government, this "celebration" could not take place on March 18.

My personal opinion is that theory #1 is very unlikely. Putin is banning all forms of protest, and clearly wearing the colors of the Ukrainian flag (the colors are essentially an exact match) is not allowed in Russia. Everyone knows that. Did everyone at Roscosmos simply forget that those flight suits were on the mission? Was there absolutely nothing else those cosmonauts had to wear for the TV cameras? As far as I know, in the history of Russian space flight no cosmonaut has ever worn a flight suit with those colors. So the first time they do is a few weeks after the Ukrainian invasion and that’s because there was a lot of yellow fabric available that just had to be used, or because they are the colors of their university? That is not credible.

Theory #3 requires us to believe that a Russian propaganda “celebration” of victory in Ukraine is boosted by Russians wearing the colors of Ukraine, a country that Putin says is not a real country at all but part of Russia. That’s some pretty crazy thinking.

Theory #2 seems the most probable. The suits were surreptitiously placed on board late in the loading process with the full cooperation of the cosmonauts and a number of other people.

 

[Grendal]

There you go.

OneWeb reaches launch deal with SpaceX

OneWeb reaches launch deal with SpaceX

spacenews.com

 

[ecarfan]

There you go.

OneWeb reaches launch deal with SpaceX

OneWeb reaches launch deal with SpaceX

spacenews.com

Oh the irony; SpaceX launching satellites for a Starlink competitor. Good money for SpaceX, and in my opinion OneWeb will not be able to offer serious competition anyway.

 

[ecarfan]

Eric Berger gives a good overview of the reasons why Russia is very unlikely to pull out of the ISS in the next few years.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/heres-why-russia-probably-wont-break-the-space-station-partnership/

 

[Grendal]

ESA ends cooperation with Russia on lunar missions

ESA announced April 13 it was further cutting ties with Russia by dropping plans to cooperate on a series of lunar missions, turning to NASA and others.

spacenews.com

 

[ecarfan]

The same cosmonauts who arrived at the ISS in March wearing yellow and blue suits are now displaying a flag representing a region in Ukraine captured by Russia after its invasion. See https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/russian-astronauts-use-space-station-to-promote-anti-ukraine-propaganda/. They obviously brought that flag with them, so it was planned in advance.

That is I think an unprecedented overtly political display on the ISS and it makes a mockery of recent statements by NASA chief Bill Nelson about how the ISS represents a sterling example of “peace and cooperation” between the two countries.

Eric Berger writes:

NASA's cooperation with Russia may come into greater public focus in a couple of months. At present, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is scheduled to fly on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the station in September. Around the same time, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina is due to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle to the station as part of the seat swap. The arrangement has not been formally agreed to by the US and Russian governments.

NASA should cancel that seat swap. It cannot ignore Roscomos using the ISS for political propaganda purposes. The order for the cosmonauts to display that flag came either from Rogozin or directly from Putin.

 

[bxr140]

They obviously brought that flag with them, so it was planned in advance.

The flag could have easily been sent on the Soyuz progress mission that went up a month ago.

 

[Grendal]

NASA's reaction to the flag:

NASA criticizes Russia for using space station to promote invasion of Ukraine

NASA strongly criticized Russia July 7 for using the International Space Station to promote its invasion of Ukraine.

spacenews.com

 

[ecarfan]

Eric Berger reports As rumors swirl about his future, Russia’s space chief darkens his rhetoric

The Interfax news agency reports that Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov, who oversees the Russian space and defense industry, may be moved into the leadership of Roscosmos. Separately, Telegram channels have been citing other media making similar claims about Borisov and Rogozin.

 

[808?]

Russia's space agency to issue bonds for satellite programme

 

[ecarfan]

Russia's space agency to issue bonds for satellite programme

Russia's space agency will borrow up to 50 billion roubles ($710 million) in 2023 to fund a mass satellite-building programme to catch up with the United States and China, the organisation said on Tuesday.

Roscosmos said it would place publicly traded bonds on Russia's financial markets throughout next year to boost its capacity to produce and launch satellites both for the Russian government and private companies.

It’s hard for me to understand why any Russian investor would buy those bonds. Unless they were ordered to by a certain lunatic in the Kremlin.

Borisov wants Russia to produce 200 to 250 satellites a year by the end of 2025

And then Russia will have to build dozens of new rockets to get the sats to orbit, and who is going to pay for all those throwaway rockets?

And what is the revenue model for hundreds of new Russian telecom sats? Almost no one outside of Russia will consider being a customer. Not the Chinese; they will build their own constellation, they would never want to rely on Russia for critical infrastructure. Maybe the Iranians, and maybe…?