Russian Rockets No Longer an Option

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Antares rocket on the launch pad. (Northrop Grumman)

Northrop Grumman is switching from Russian-made rocket engines to U.S.-made rocket engines for its Antares rocket ships that bring supplies to the U.S. International Space Station (ISS). Russia has not shipped any engines since March following its invasion of Ukraine, so Northrop Grumman needs an alternative. It can fly two more missions with the Russian-made rockets in its inventory.

Firefly Aerospace in Texas will be able to meet these needs. In a press release, Northrop Grumman stated:

Firefly’s propulsion technology utilizes the same propellants as the current Antares rocket, which minimizes launch site upgrades. The Antares 330 will utilize seven of Firefly’s Miranda engines and leverage its composites technology for the first stage structures and tanks, while Northrop Grumman provides its proven avionics and software, upper-stage structures and Castor 30XL motor, as well as proven vehicle integration and launch pad operations. This new stage will also significantly increase Antares mass to orbit capability.

Fortunately, we have some redundancy in ISS cargo missions, with SpaceX able to pick up slack as necessary. In fact, Northrop Grumman will be contracting with SpaceX to handle three of its missions as it prepares for the new Antares system for mid-to-late 2024.

European/Russian Rover Coordination Now Dead

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Drawing of the ESA’s ExoMars martian rover called the Rosalind Franklin. (ESA)

The European Space Agency (ESA) has decided to terminate cooperation with Russia on the ExoMars rover mission. The joint mission, planned for September 2022, was suspended earlier this year after Russia invaded Ukraine. The ESA has now cut all links on the project and hopes to work with NASA on some aspects of the mission.

The rover, named the Rosalind Franklin, would be the first European rover to visit Mars. It is designed to explore the surface of Mars as well as collect and analyse samples. The plan is to land the rover at a site with high potential for finding well-preserved organic material, particularly from the very early history of the planet.

Both Covid and the war in Ukraine have delayed the rover mission, but the ESA will see it through, alone if necessary, but hopefully with others. Maybe Russia can be a partner again in the future, but it will need new leadership that knows how to play well with others.

Space Quote: NASA Condemns Russian Political Stunt

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov pose with a flag of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic on the ISS in a photograph released July 4. (Roscosmos via Reuters)

“[NASA] strongly rebukes using the International Space Station for political purposes to support [the] war against Ukraine, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s primary function among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes.”

-NASA statement, as quoted in the Washington Post, regarding the picture of three Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) holding a flag of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic released earlier this month. Russia is probably try to clear up some earlier confusion about the colors worn by these same astronauts back in March (see below). We get it, you represent an aggressive nation preying on its neighbors.

Image (Credit): Russian cosmonauts clothing for their March arrival at the ISS . (Roscosmos)

Space Quote: Not Meeting Russia’s Space Goals

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: CNN

“Every penny should be spent for some purpose and some task…Therefore, we do not just check expenses, we also make sure that the results that were announced in state programs are achieved.”

-Statement by Alexei Kudrin, chairman of Russia’s Accounts Chamber, to Russia’s President Putin regarding the substandard performance of Russia’s space program, as reported in a Newsweek story, “Putin’s Space Chief Clashes With Top Economist Over Russian Space Program.” The invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions have hit the Russian economy and led to the cancellation of various space missions and contracts, and the situation is not expected to get better while Russia spends its time and resources attacking neighbors rather than focusing on its future in space.

Russians Hijack A German Space Telescope

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Image (Credit): Artist’s impression of the spacecraft carrying the eROSITA (highlighted) and ART-XC space telescopes. (Max Planck Institute)

Remember all those sanctions and cancelled projects following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how we hoped scientists would rise above it? Well, the Russians will have none of it. They have decided to switch on Germany’s eROSITA space telescope.

Built by the Max Planck Institute and launched in 2019 together with the Russian ART-XC space telescope, the eROSITA was placed in sleep mode back in February shortly after the Russian invasion. Both the German and Russian telescopes are designed to work in tandem to study Dark Energy.

The main scientific goals of eROSITA are

  • to detect the hot intergalactic medium of 50-100 thousand galaxy clusters and groups and hot gas in filaments between clusters to map out the large scale structure in the Universe for the study of cosmic structure evolution,
  • to detect systematically all obscured accreting Black Holes in nearby galaxies and many (up to 3 Million) new, distant active galactic nuclei, and
  • to study in detail the physics of galactic X-ray source populations, like pre-main sequence stars, supernova remnants and X-ray binaries.

In a recent Gizmodo article, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin stated:

They—the people that made the decision to shut down the telescope—don’t have a moral right to halt this research for humankind just because their pro-fascist views are close to our enemies.

Neither German nor Russian scientists are happy with this political decision. It is likely to have implications for future joint Russian missions.

Whether it is politics or micrometeroids, astronomers have plenty of outside factors messing up well-planned missions.