Russia has issued yet another threat to the West as they continue their invasion of Ukraine, warning that the sanctions being imposed on them could see the crash of the International Space Station, AFP revealed.
According to the report, the chair of the Russian space agency Roscosmos had said on Saturday that Western sanctions could cause “the fall of the International Space Station”.
Does the war in Ukraine jeopardize cooperation within the International Space Station? In any case, this is what the experts fear after the declarations of Dmitri Rogozine. The director-general of Roscosmos, the equivalent of NASA in Russia claimed that the sanctions against the Kremlin could cause the fall of the International Space Station.
According to Gilles Dawidowicz , it is above all a question of “a posture” on the part of Russia.
On BFMTV, the Secretary-General of the Astronomical Society of France said that it was also a “war of words, declarations, communication. The boss of the Russian space agency has been on fire for a few days on social networks and participates in the threat”, he assured.
In a series of vehement tweets, Dmitry Rogozin indeed attacked the West: “If you renounce this cooperation, which will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting, with the risk of falling on the United States or the “Europe? It’s also possible that the 500-ton structure could crash in India or China. Do you want to pose that threat to them? The ISS doesn’t fly over Russia, so all the risk is on you.”
If this description is certainly exaggerated, the place of the Russians in the international space station is indeed “fundamental”, recalls Gilles Dawidowicz. They participate “in the operation, in the supply of the station by bringing back fuel -, food, technical and scientific equipment”.
All this allows the ISS to be “raised in its orbit” regularly. A mission rather devolved to the Russians, according to the Secretary-General of the Astronomical Society of France.
Short-term Russian withdrawal deemed unlikely
For what short-term consequences? “For the moment, there is no reality” of these withdrawal threats. The cooperation of astronauts is too “interwoven” to imagine withdrawing the Russians from the space adventure according to Gilles Dawidowicz. “There are tensions on the ground. In theory, it shouldn’t have more consequences than that in orbit.”
Onboard the ISS, Russians and Westerners have lived side by side for years. If the experts highlight the professionalism of the astronauts, who generally stay away from land conflicts, the war is not without consequence on space cooperation.
Save a good spatial agreement
Although behind closed doors in space, the seven astronauts – four Americans, two Russians and a German – are not completely cut off from the world. They have access to the Internet, are kept informed of the political situation, and are in constant contact with the teams of their space agency on Earth.
Astronauts are also bound to certain political neutrality by the code of conduct for astronauts on board the Station, enacted in the 2000s,
The question that can now arise is that of the renewal of international space cooperation beyond 2024, the date of the end of the use of the International Space Station.
(AFP)