“Get out of my way, you idiot! Otherwise the death of the International Space Station will be on your conscience”.
“Dimon, why did you delete this tweet? Don’t you want everyone to see the baby you are?”
It would seem the usual pathetic social scuffle if the protagonists, between 7 and 8 March, had not been the former astronaut Scott Kelly, a NASA veteran among the Americans who remained the longest in orbit, and Dmitry Rogozin, a loyalist Putin and director of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The tenor of the exchange, on the other hand, tells the spatial reflections of the conflict in Ukraine and in a few lines summarizes the progressive disintegration of political equilibrium, even beyond the sky.
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Lasting balances, it should be emphasized; and in a sphere, the space one, to which military strategies are linked, of course, but also a large part of our daily activities, the economy, climate monitoring, the protection of the Earth and of us with it.
This is why Scott and Rogozin’s brawl is anything but childish: it photographs the compromise of a peaceful collaboration that lasted more than forty years, something that the space sector has represented and of which it has been the vanguard despite its origins, traceable to when the United States and the Soviet Union used to point to the moon.
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All finished. Or at least to be redone. And it is no coincidence that the International Space Station, the supreme symbol of one space diplomacy of success, has been at the center of so much fighting: as told here, in response to the technological sanctions imposed on Moscow, on February 26 Rogozin recalled that any Russian ouster would compromise the control of the ISS – whose navigation Roscosmos is responsible for -, with the risk that the more than 500 tons of space structure fall on the heads of Americans, Europeans, Chinese or Indians (not the Russians, since their territory is not flown over). An underlining interpreted by many as a threat and refreshed when the number one of the Russian agency made it known, also via Twitter, that the supplies to the station could be interrupted, unless NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA ) and the Canadian one (CSA) “remove the illegal sanctions on our companies and our contractors in the interest of the ISS”.
Fanciful exegesis aside, the withdrawal of Russian personnel from the European spaceport of Kourou last week and Roscosmos’ decision to terminate its collaborations with Western partners immediately transformed the threats, real or alleged, into facts: the first to pay the price – in the strict sense – it was OneWeb, a company owned by the British government, which on 4 March was supposed to launch 36 satellites of its constellation for broadband internet from the Baikonur cosmodrome, and aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.
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The launcher and its cargo remained on the ramp in Kazakhstan, waiting for Britain to respond to an ultimatum from Rogozin: to ensure that the constellation is not used for military purposes, a request impossible to satisfy given the previous OneWeb contracts, and withdrawal of British financing to the company, under penalty of the “seizure” – to be understood if temporary – of the space load. As Rogozin was quick to point out once again, the cancellation of the launch and the subsequent 15 foreseen by the agreements between Roscosmos and OneWeb, which should have completed the constellation of 648 satellites by the end of the year, would make the failure of OneWeb plausible. , already saved from bankruptcy in 2020 by British finances and other investors, including the Indian multinational Bharti Enterprises. And although Chris McLaughlin, OneWeb’s head of government affairs, rejected the Russian requests has already given reassurances about the financial strength of the company, it is evident that it is necessary to replace the Soyuz with equally reliable launchers.
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A reconfiguration of the programs in progress that goes beyond the OneWeb case: in fact, the two new satellites of the European constellation Galileo could also remain on the ground, whose launch, also via Sojuz, is scheduled for April 4. Any cancellation would not affect the functioning of the network in orbit, but would reveal the need to find a backup as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, as hacker attacks against Roscosmos pile up – the most recent claimed by Anonymous-linked @YourAnonCentral activists who claimed to have severed links between the space agency and its satellites, Moscow has ousted NASA. from the Venera D program, destined for Venus, therefore he interrupted the collaboration with the German institutes, a decision that forced the safe-mode – a “momentary hibernation” – the “eROSITA” X telescope, aboard the Russian mission Spektr-RG, and which will prevent the German ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer, from carrying out experiments in the Russian segment of the ISS, where he is today .
Moreover, it cannot be excluded that the tensions may also have consequences on the return to orbit of Samantha Cristoforetti, scheduled for April: for now, although ESA has announced them as part of the management protocols of the ISS, the sudden reduction in the duration of the mission and the fact that AstroSamantha will not be, as planned, the first European to command the outpost, but the leader of the western segment alone arouse more than a fear.
Concerns that, regardless of the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, cannot but extend to the immediate future of the sector, especially in Europe: on the one hand because it is now unlikely that the ExoMars mission, a collaboration between ESA and Roscosmos, will leave for Mars on next September, as expected. It is not a recent postponement, both for the resources invested (also from Italy), and because any delay would force us to talk about it again in 2024 or 2026.
To know the fate of the joint mission we will have to wait until March 16 and 17, when the meeting of the Council of the member countries of the European Space Agency will be held. There are not a few who want ExoMars ashore, but there are those who are convinced that it is necessary to leave an “open door” in Moscow, also to give a signal of relaxation on a crucial issue for everyone such as that of scientific research.
Although the European autonomy of access to space would not be compromised by any contingent decision, even if it proved to be lasting or perennial, there is another aspect that the international crisis highlights: the weakening of the old continent in a crucial context such as that extra-atmospheric.
Today more than ever it is urgent for Europe to recalibrate its space strategy, both in an economic and technological sense, starting with the enabling sector of launchers, which in the short term could see the excessive commercial power of US private individuals strengthened against groups such as ArianeSpace. and companies such as the Italian Avio.
The ongoing tensions could in fact benefit the usual ones space billionaires, with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the lead – against whom Rogozin had also lashed out. Or, but it depends on Europe, they could stimulate continental industry, primarily in its support for private initiative.
It is a bet, the urgency of which was made clear well before the conflict in Ukraine by the ESA Director General, Josef Aschbacher, and by the European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market, Defense, Industry and Space, Thierry Breton: “the sector is undergoing a profound transformation – the Frenchman declared at the European Space Conference in Brussels at the beginning of February – Europe is in full expansion, with new private operators that are changing the business model, integrating large industries, SMEs and digital ecosystems. We need to release this potential and 2022 will be the turning point ”.
It is difficult to believe that Breton was referring to a military conflict as a “breakthrough”. In fact, it is necessary to understand how desirable it is that space reverberates terrestrial tensions – perhaps stimulated by competition and shared regulation for greater collective benefit -, or if it is a step back by half a century.
A new geopolitical balance, private interests and legitimate ambitions of countries excluded from the sector until a few years ago require one space diplomacy renewed, and strategies that finally aim at long-term goals. Due to its interconnection with our daily activities, space can no longer be subordinated to this or that wind (perhaps of war).
Other than social scuffles; everyone’s life is at stake.