The experienced NASA astronaut, Thomas Marshburn, is not easily flustered. “Working together here is essential for our survival,” this 61 year-old man made it clear a few days ago, floating in weightlessness on the International Space Station (ISS). ).
A student from the US state of Ohio had previously asked the astronaut, who is on the ISS for the third time, through a video message, what coexistence is like in such a space. small and with such different companions. “We train before we go, and you get to know your teammates very well,” Marshburn said.
Joining Marshburn on the ISS are currently German astronaut Matthias Maurer, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, as well as Russian cosmonauts Piotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov.
Will US-Russian cooperation on the ISS continue?
For several months now, the seven companions have been living and working together on humanity’s outpost in space. However, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February and subsequent sanctions, the question has become more and more urgent: can US-Russian cooperation continue on the ISS, in which the space agencies of Japan, Canada and and Europe?
NASA is being very cautious, and not only through astronaut Marshburn. The director of NASA’s manned space program, Kathy Lueders, said at a press conference that the situation was being monitored, but that ISS operations were continuing “as normal.”
both countries were in permanent contact, he said. “We have kept operations going before in circumstances like this and both parties have always been very professional.” Russia and the United States maintain their “peaceful relations in space”, the end of which would be a “sad day”.
Russia threatens an eventual ISS accident
For its part, Russia is on a different note. Although the Russian space agency Roskosmos also underlines its willingness to continue cooperating in space, it also warns the US of a possible cessation of it and even paints the horror scenario of an ISS accident. In addition, Russia suspended the delivery of rocket engines to the United States. “Let them fly into space on their brooms,” the head of Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozin, sarcastically commented. . This would be possible within a year, Ivan Moiseiev, scientific director of the Moscow Space Policy Institute, told the Izvestia newspaper. However, Roskosmos has so far prevented a definitive Russian withdrawal from the ISS, which has already been threatened in the past. Only last year, Russia sent an expensive research module to the ISS.
German DLR ends cooperation with Russia
But there are more concrete cuts: after the German Aerospace Center (DLR) declared the end of its cooperation with Russia, Moscow also ended to your cooperation on your part. In an unprecedented move in response to EU sanctions, Russia has also withdrawn its staff from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, the only access to the cosmos for the European Space Agency ESA.
For its part, ESA is reviewing future cooperation in light of the sanctions and has to make “many difficult decisions”, announced Director General Josef Aschbacher. The European-Russian space project “Exomars” to search for traces of life on the Red Planet seems to have already moved away in the distant future.
ESA canceled a question and answer session with the German astronaut Maurer in the ISS. “I can say that the astronauts cooperate very well with each other,” Aschbacher stressed to Südwestrundfunk.
“Matthias expressed the hope that we earthlings who are here on earth get along, because what is happening here is unimaginable, only seen from space.” It is not officially known if war is a problem on board the ISS.
Historic cooperation, even in difficult times
Despite numerous conflicts between Moscow and Washington, space travel has always been considered one of the few areas in which cooperation between the two countries has worked. Even during the Cold War, the then Eastern and Western blocs had worked together in space; for example, when an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz docked at 1975.
The multimillion-dollar ISS project, permanently inhabited by travelers for more than 52 years, is the flagship of this cooperation. Humanity’s outpost some 400 kilometers above the Earth is considered a peace project.
At the end of the year, NASA agreed to continue operating the ISS until 2030. The Russian side has not yet agreed to this extension; at the beginning of the year Roskosmos was still promoting it, but this has changed with the sanctions. Experts fear a permanent loss of trust between the two countries.
Missions of the Short-Term ISS
However, the Ukraine war also casts a different light on shorter-term ISS plans term. Several field missions are planned in the coming weeks. In addition, on 18 May, when Maurer turns 52 years old , the ISS will be launched.
A new three-person Russian crew and, later, the first completely private crew from the United States will arrive at the ISS in March with the “Axiom-1” mission. Normally, new arrivals are warmly welcomed at the airlock, but now scenes of Russian-American jubilation in space would almost be a political statement.
At the end of March, the astronaut from NASA Vande Hei returns to Earth in a Russian Soyuz capsule along with cosmonauts Dubrov and Shkaplerov. NASA director Lueders said that this plan would be fulfilled for the time being.
However, the United States would have to pick up his space traveler through a detour after landing in Kazakhstan. Russia and the United States have closed their airspace to each other’s planes.
“Operating flexibilities”
NASA Director Lueders had announced that possible “operational flexibilities” were being studied, among other things in relation to a possible necessary lifting of the station by the United States.
Russian spacecraft attached to the ISS are currently used for course correction. SpaceX founder Elon Musk, which sends astronauts and supplies to the ISS with its “Dragon” freighters, has already brought his space company into the conversation as a possible backer. But Lueders also stressed: “It would be very difficult for us to continue operating on our own. The ISS is based on international cooperation, with mutual dependencies”.
FEW (dpa)