Russian space isolation grows as OneWeb cancels launch

OneWeb, a satellite internet company partly owned by the British government, has canceled an upcoming satellite launch of a Russian rocket and suspended all future launches that depended on Russia, the company announced Thursday after a tense public standoff with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. .

Also on Thursday, Roscosmos announced it would stop selling rocket engines to US companies.

The actions, both consequences of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, will further isolate the Russian space agency from its western space partners and drastically curtail Russia’s private space activities. OneWeb’s loss of a reliable rocket supplier for launches also presents the company with new challenges as it aims to complete its constellation of 648 satellites in orbit later this year.

OneWeb was bailed out of bankruptcy in 2020 by the UK government and other investors. It was scheduled to launch 36 satellites aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan on Friday. The company has launched about 400 satellites into orbit since 2019, each time using Soyuz, a workhorse rocket that has been operating since the days of the Cold War space race.

But on Wednesday, just after the Soyuz rolled out on the pad for its launch, Russia’s space chief Dmitry Rogozin announced two conditions to counter sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine: The space agency would not proceed with the satellite mission unless Britain withdraws its billion-dollar stake in OneWeb and gives the company a “guarantee that its satellites will not be used for military purposes”.

Mr Rogozin too posted a video on Twitter shows Roscosmos personnel on a platform next to the rocket covering British, American and Japanese flags adorned on the outside of the rocket. “The launchers in Baikonur decided that our missile would look nicer without the flags of some countries,” said Rogozin, a former deputy prime minister who often makes bombastic comments on social media.

The space agency’s ultimatum, which came just three days before the previously scheduled launch, sparked emergency talks between British officials and OneWeb shareholders, who decided Wednesday evening to suspend all future launches from Baikonur, the spaceport in Kazakhstan, where Russia conducts most of its launches. Mr. Rogozin suggested on Twitter that OneWeb’s decision would plunge the company into new bankruptcy proceedings.

Chris McLaughlin, OneWeb’s director of government affairs, dismissed the warning.

“This is an incredibly well-financed, debt-free company, backed by powerful international shareholders who made the decision themselves,” he said in an interview.

Britain does not have its own ability to launch large payloads into orbit. Mr. McLaughlin said OneWeb would be looking at alternative launch providers in Japan, India and the United States.

“We’re always keeping an eye on the launcher environment, but this is something totally new and unprecedented,” said Mr. McLaughlin.

The company was bailed out of bankruptcy in 2020 by India’s Bharti Enterprises, OneWeb’s largest shareholder, and Britain, whose $500 million public investment in the satellite operator was intended to boost Britain’s space economy. With no missiles to launch at, OneWeb’s goal to complete its mega-constellation is severely disrupted. It competes with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation to bundle broadband internet to remote regions around the world.

OneWeb had already faced pressure from British politicians to follow energy companies in severing Russian business ties. The company had paid for its Russian launches in bulk through Arianespace, the French rocket company, and had six missions left under the contract — a launch setup likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the coming days, OneWeb will begin negotiations with Arianespace to determine how, if possible, to recover funds for the suspended Soyuz missions, according to a OneWeb official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive business deliberations. to reveal. The official added that it was unclear to OneWeb executives when and how the 36 satellites currently in Russia for Friday’s now-cancelled mission would get off the rocket, or where those satellites will be stored as OneWeb searches for another launch provider. .

“There is no quick fix to this problem,” said Caleb Henry, satellite industry analyst at Quilty Analytics. “They have the money to find new launches, it’s just the huge inconvenience of doing that.”

Mr Henry added that launch contracts of this size are typically signed two years in advance.

“OneWeb had expected their constellation to be ready in August, so that won’t be possible with a new launch provider,” he said.

Russia’s move to stumble upon the business of one of its space agency’s largest commercial clients was arguably the strongest yet example of how Ukraine’s war spilled over into space, an area where the country has been collaborating for decades. found with countries that were once adversaries of the Cold War.

Last week, Roscosmos withdrew more than 80 Russian personnel from French Guiana, where the European Space Agency has its only launch site and flies commercial Soyuz missions. Then ESA said a joint robotics mission to Mars by the agency and Russia, expected to launch later this year, is now “very unlikely” to go ahead in time. And on Thursday, Roscosmos said it would stop collaborating with Germany on joint research projects for space stations.

With the barrage of Western sanctions against the invasion, Roscosmos’ isolation from its Western partners seemed inevitable, said Victoria Samson, a space policy analyst with the Secure World Foundation.

“It is not encouraging that the Russian space agency is self-isolating,” she said. “Maybe this is Russia hastening the death of connections that could happen anyway in due course. But now it’s happening on their terms.”

NASA, which runs the International Space Station with Roscosmos, has said it plans to continue working with its Russian counterparts. The two partners had negotiated an agreement to launch Russian astronauts on Crew Dragon, a SpaceX vehicle that carries NASA astronauts.

In addition to collaborating with NASA, Russia said Thursday it would stop selling rocket engines to US companies.

“In a situation like this, we cannot provide the United States with the best rocket engines in the world,” Rogozin said on Russian state television. “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what.”

The freeze may most acutely affect Northrop Grumman, which uses Russian engines for its Antares launch vehicle that carries cargo to the space station for NASA. SpaceX also provides this service to the space station, as do spacecraft launched by Japan and Russia.

In a more symbolic move, Mr Rogozin said Russia would no longer provide assistance in using another Russian engine already purchased and in use by United Launch Alliance for Atlas 5, one of the most widely used US missiles.

ULA’s chief executive, Tory Bruno, downplayed the effect of the loss of technical assistance from Russia, saying, “We can do without it if we need to.”