Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to resonate all over the world. Many countries and large companies have started sanctions against Russia and the Russian society in order to take their stand. The Kremlin faced heavy sanctions, especially from the USA and Europe. Now, Russia’s space projects are stalled.
Russia has stopped Soyuz rocket launch in French Guiana
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has influenced the whole world, undoubtedly has negative consequences in many ways. So much so that the Russians faced huge sanctions. However, the reaction of the Russians to these sanctions is not delayed. According to the report published by Space.com, due to the sanctions made by the European Union, the Russian Space agency temporarily suspended Soyuz rocket launches in French Guiana and Baikonur Space Base in Kazakhstan.
Roscosmos and other Russian companies working on the rocket are preparing to withdraw all 87 personnel from the Guyana Space Center in Kourou. The Russian space agency made the statement on the subject via Twitter. The following statements were included in the statement:
Roscosmos suspends cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches from the Kourou Cosmodrome and withdrawing personnel, including the consolidated launch team, from French Guiana.
European launch provider Arianespace would use Roscosmos’ Soyuz rockets for some planned satellite launches in the coming months. At this point, cooperation seems to be suspended for now. Arianespace was making plans to launch two Galileo satellites into orbit using a Soyuz rocket in April.
Russia and Europe were working on several joint space projects. As part of the partnership’s project called ExoMars, the robotic mission to Mars would take place this year. For now, there is no postponement regarding this plan. On the subject, Josef Aschbacher, director of the European Space Agency, made some statements.
The European Space Agency (ESA) continues to work together on all its programmers, including the International Space Station (ISS) and ExoMars projects. No other decision has been taken yet and we will continue to monitor the developments in this regard.
Roscosmos president Dmitry Rogozin stated that they temporarily cut off relations with Arianespace, and stated that a project partnership with the USA was broken. Rogozin stated that they removed the USA from the joint project of exploring Venus called Venera-D. The head of Roscosmos also claimed that these sanctions will damage relations between Russia and NASA, and may even lead to the collapse of the International Space Station.
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