Roskosmos has suspended cooperation with the Europeans in the program of joint launches of rockets from the Kourou cosmodrome. This was a response to the adoption by the European Union of sanctions against Russian space enterprises. In response to US sanctions, Russia refuses a joint flight to Venus, a Russian-European mission to Mars may be questionable. How the operation in Ukraine affected Russian space was sorted out. "Roskosmos" stopped participating in the organization of joint launches of rockets from the cosmodrome in French Guiana. This was stated on Twitter by the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin.

“In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roskosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and withdrawing its technical personnel, including the consolidated launch crew, from French Guiana,” he said.

The day before, the European Union imposed financial and technological restrictions on Russian companies in the military-industrial, energy, aircraft manufacturing and financial sectors of Russia.

“In view of the gravity of the situation, on February 25, 2022, the Council adopted a decision imposing new sanctions on various sectors of the Russian economy, in particular defense, energy, aviation and financial,” the EU Council said.

“With these launches, everything was sad anyway, since initially there was an agreement on the Kur for a certain number of missiles, then it was extended, but this year they were all supposed to be fired. Of course, this decision is not justified by any economics, a purely political decision, despite the fact that it was an example of mutually beneficial economic cooperation,” said Vitaly Yegorov, the popularizer of astronautics, the creator of the Open Space community.

Roskosmos has been carrying out joint launches of Soyuz-ST rockets with Europeans from the space center in Guiana for more than a decade. The launch operator is the European launch service provider Arianespace. On the Russian side, Glavkosmos JSC is the lead contract integrator in the project. The Soyuz launch complex is owned by the European Space Agency and the launch is carried out under the responsibility of the French government.

Since 2011, up to four launches of Russian rockets have been carried out annually from the Kourou cosmodrome.

The next launch of the Soyuz-ST rocket with the Fregat-MT upper stage and two Galileo FOC M10 spacecraft was scheduled for April 6, 2022.

Eight to ten people are constantly at the launch complex, who make up the monitoring group. Basically, these are employees of TsENKI and the Progress Rocket and Space Center, who work there on a rotational basis, assess the state of the launch complex and the missiles in storage. Maintenance is carried out in accordance with the schedule agreed with Arianespace. Fuel, missiles and upper stages are delivered by sea in special containers.

About 300-330 Russian specialists are at the launch site in French Guiana during the launch campaign.

Joint launches in Kourou are not the only example of cooperation between Russia and the EU in space. For several years, Roscosmos and ESA have been carrying out a two-stage joint Martian mission ExoMars. Within its framework, in 2016, the European spacecraft TGO with Russian scientific instruments was launched into the orbit of Mars.

In the fall of 2022, the second stage is planned - the launch of a landing mission to the surface of Mars with a Russian descent platform and a European rover.

Mars under threat?

“Now you can fear for the future of the ExoMars program, which is very important for the Russian contribution to the exploration of Mars. Until today, we have not imposed sanctions on the European Space Agency, now they have, let's see how they react, ”said Yegorov.

The EU sectoral measures introduced earlier concern Russian Railways, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Kamaz, Kalashnikov, Almaz-Antey, Uralvagonzavod, Sevkomflot and Sevmash. They will be prohibited from accessing the capital market and any type of financial services in the EU. In addition, trade with them in military or dual-use products will be banned.

Of the space enterprises, the Progress Rocket and Space Center and TsNIIMash were sanctioned. In addition, the Roatom enterprise, the All-Russian Research Institute of Automation named after N. L. Dukhov, was on the list, participating in the development of ADRON devices for the upcoming Martian mission.

“It is unlikely that the sanctions will affect the Progressive Soyuz, it seems that all the electronics there are already imported. The production of new missiles may suffer, some other projects may slow down,” the expert noted.In addition, as Rogozin stated, Russia refuses to cooperate with the United States in the Venera-D project. “In the context of the introduction of new and the preservation of previously imposed sanctions, I consider the continued participation of the United States in the Russian project for the development and creation of the interplanetary station Venera-D inappropriate,” Rogozin said.

The day before, the head of the state corporation admitted that the imposed US sanctions would affect the creation of spacecraft. “Perhaps, something will have to be rearranged somehow, some spacecraft, apparently, will be made a little later, but the priority for the vehicles is in the interests of the Ministry of Defense, of course, Roskosmos can wait with its vehicles, but all these programs will still be implemented,” Rogozin said on the air of the NTV channel.

Earlier, Rogozin said that the International Space Station could fall on the United States due to sanctions against Roscosmos.

bbabo.Net