East-West tensions

Russia puts international space station on table over Ukraine sanctions

Moscow says it will reject US request to prolong life of ISS beyond 2020 in retaliation for Washington's sanctions

the Guardian,

13 May, 2014

Russia cast doubt on the long-term future of the international space station, a showcase of post-cold war cooperation, as it retaliated on Tuesday against US sanctions over Ukraine.

The country's deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, said Moscow would reject a US request to prolong the station's use beyond 2020, and ban Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites.

Moscow took the action, which also included suspending the operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites on its territory from June, in response to Washington's plans to deny export licences for hi-tech items that could help the Russian military.

"We are very concerned about continuing to develop hi-tech projects with such an unreliable partner as the United States, which politicises everything," Rogozin told a news conference.

Washington wants to keep the international space station in use until at least 2024.

Russia's threat to part ways on a project which was supposed to end the space race underlines how far relations between the former cold war rivals have deteriorated since Russia annexed Crimea in March.

Since the end of the US space shuttle project, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been the only way astronauts can get to the space station, whose crews include both Americans and Russians.

At a time when Moscow is struggling to modernise its space programme, Rogozin said US plans to deny export licences for some hi-tech items were a blow to Russian industry. "These sanctions are out of place and inappropriate," he said. "We have enough of our own problems."

Rogozin said Moscow was planning strategic changes in its space industry after 2020 and aimed to use money and intellectual resources that now go to the space station for a project "with more prospects".

He also suggested Russia could use the station without the US. "The Russian segment can exist independently from the American one. The US one cannot," he said.

Nasa is working with companies to develop space taxis with the goal of restoring US transport to the station by 2017, and in the meantime the US pays Russia more than $60m per person to fly its astronauts to the station.

The upheaval in Ukraine, where Washington says Russia is backing separatists and the Kremlin accuses the US of helping protesters to topple a Moscow-friendly president in February, has led to the worst east-west crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In addition to the hi-tech sector sanctions, the US has imposed visa bans and assets freezes on officials and politicians and targeted companies with links to Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. The EU has also imposed sanctions.

The Russian foreign ministry said earlier on Tuesday that the latest EU measures were an "exhausted, trite approach" that would only deepen discord and hamper efforts to defuse the crisis in Ukraine.

Moscow to suspend American GPS sites on Russian territory from June

Russia is going to suspend the operation of all American GPS sites on its territory, starting from June 1, said Russia’s deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries.

RT,

13 May, 2014

"Starting June 1, we will halt the work of those stations on Russian territory,” Rogozin said.

Rogozin pointed out that American GPS ground stations are located in Russia under an agreement that dates back to 1993 and 2001.

“Under this agreement there are 11 GPS stations on the territories of 10 [Russian federal] subjects,” he said.

He stressed that Moscow and Washington have until May 31 to agree on the issue of setting Russian GLONASS stations on US territory.

“We’re starting negotiations which will last for three months. We hope that by the end of summer, these talks will bring a solution that will allow our cooperation to be restored on the basis of parity and proportionality,” Rogozin said.

But if the negotiations turn out to be fruitless, operation of the 11 American GPS stations in Russia will “be permanently terminated” from September 1, he warned.

Dmitry Rogozin also said that Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit.

“We proceed from the fact that without guarantees that our engines are used for non-military spacecraft launches only, we won’t be able to supply them to the US,”Rogozin is cited as saying by Interfax news agency.

If such guarantees aren’t provided the Russian side will also be unable to perform routine maintenance for the engines, which have been previously delivered to the US, he added.

The US relies on Russian-made RD-180 and NK-33 engines to launch military and civilian satellites into space, with NASA saying it’s unlikely to produce a fully operational rocket engine of its own before 2020.

According to Rogozin, Moscow also isn’t planning to agree to the US offer of prolonging operation of the International Space Station (ISS).

“We currently project that we’ll require the ISS until 2020,” he said. “We need to understand how much profit we’re making by using the station, calculate all the expenses and depending on the results decide what to do next.”

“A completely new concept for further space exploration” is currently being developed by the relevant Russian agencies, the official explained.

Previously, the US space agency, NASA, had asked Russia’s Roscosmos to keep the ISS in orbit till 2024.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have seriously deteriorated after the accession into Russia of the Ukrainian Republic of Crimea, which refused to recognize the new coup-imposed authority in Kiev.

The US and its EU partners have introduced several waves of sanctions against Russia, which have seen assets frozen and travel bans imposed on dozens of the country’s politicians and businessman, as well as the cessation of joint projects in different areas, including space.

However, Rogozin stressed that Russia will apply restrictive measures of its own only as a response to sanctions imposed by the West.

“We won’t be first to adopt sanctions, especially in the high-tech area. For us it is a matter of employment of our specialists,” he said.