European Space Agency
Russia has decided to suspend cooperation with European launch officials and says it will withdraw its personnel from Europe’s main spaceport.
The head of Russia’s main aerospace company, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the decision on Twitter On Saturday morning, he said his country was responding to sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia. Europe, the United States and other countries around the world this week issued significant sanctions against Russia following the country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
About two dozen Russian technicians and engineers work at Russian facilities in French Guiana. In this spaceport, called the Guyana Space Center, Europe is launching its fleet of orbital rockets, including a “Europeanized” version of the Russian Soyuz medium-duty vehicle. The Russians had been preparing a Soyuz rocket to launch two Galileo satellites for the European Union on April 6.
Europe has spent $10 billion developing the independent Galileo navigation system, which now has more than two dozen satellites in orbit. The continent has also used the Soyuz vehicle to launch elements of its Copernicus network of Earth observation satellites.
In response to Russia’s actions, the European Commissioner for Space, Thierry Breton, issued a statement on Saturday stating that there will be no impact on the constellations Galileo or Copernicus in terms of continuity or quality of service. He also said that Russia’s suspension of cooperation would not affect their development.
“We will take all relevant decisions in due course in response to this decision and resolutely continue to develop the second generation of these two sovereign space infrastructures of the EU,” Breton said. “We are ready to act decisively with Member States to protect these critical infrastructures in the event of aggression, and to further develop Ariane 6 and Vega C to ensure Europe’s strategic autonomy in launchers.”
However, the Russian decision puts the European Union in a bit of a corner. Europe’s tiny Vega rockets aren’t powerful enough to launch the Galileo and Copernicus satellites into orbit. And the continent’s heavy vehicle, the Ariane 5, is retiring in favor of the more efficient and cost-effective Ariane 6 rocket. However, all remaining Ariane 5 launches have been discussed, and the Ariane 6 rocket is unlikely to become operational until 2023.
So it’s not clear what steps Europe could take in the meantime, should it have to launch a Galileo or Copernicus satellite soon. The only Western company with the spare capacity for such a mission is probably US-based SpaceX, but it seems unlikely that Europe would want to back a competitor to its institutional launch industry.
