Roskosmos withdrew from Icarus, an international (Russia-Germany) project to observe animals from space. Since March 3, the Russian agency has suspended the transmission of data received from beacons on animals to the three receiving antennas installed on the ISS. Icarus researchers are looking for options to continue working on the project without the participation of the Russian side, as well as a way to collect data from beacons.

Roscosmos has been cooperating with Icarus since 2018, when receiving antennas were installed on the ISS. In 2020, the active phase of observations began. From the antennas, data on animal movements were sent to a ground station in Moscow. From there, they were shared with research teams and then made publicly available on Movebank. In addition to Roscosmos, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences was an active participant in the project.

Roscosmos' exit from Icarus was one of the responses to Germany's decision to turn off the eROSITA telescope at the Spektr-RG observatory. On March 3, the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the termination of cooperation with Germany on experiments on the ISS. He pointed out that Spektr-RG is an exclusively civilian project, calling the actions of the German colleagues completely unacceptable.

On March 17, the Council of the European Space Agency (ESA) abandoned the ExoMars joint program with Russia, citing "the impossibility of continuing cooperation with Roscosmos." As part of the mission, the European side was supposed to use the Russian landing platform "Kazachok" to deliver the rover to the surface of Mars. The ESA Council instructed the agency's director general to find an alternative landing option. Roskosmos itself cannot yet take the Cossack out of Europe due to the lack of air traffic.

bbabo.Net