Launch of the Soyuz spacecraft on November 27.
Roscosmos Space Corporation, via AP/Alamy
The International Space Station (ISS) may soon become a little less international. Russia's only cosmodrome capable of sending people into orbit received serious damage that could put it out of action for two years. This would leave NASA with a dilemma: take on more costs and responsibilities or let the ISS die.
On November 27, a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and an American astronaut launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. All three made it safely to the ISS, but when engineers later inspected the site, it became clear that the multi-level support structure that sits beneath the rockets and is usually securely stowed early in the launch process had shifted and collapsed to the bottom of the fire trench, where it was damaged.
According to some reports, the renovation may take up to two years – although the Russian Space Agency This is stated in a message from Roscosmos. that the damage would be repaired “in the near future.” Only time will tell the true scale of the problem.
Although the Baikonur Cosmodrome is home to dozens of launch pads, the stricken one – Launch Pad 6 on Pad 31, built in 1958 – is the only one capable of sending crewed rockets into orbit. Davide Amato Imperial College London says other Russian launch sites have other problems that preclude their use: the Plesetsk cosmodrome, 650 kilometers northeast of St. Petersburg, is too far north to be easily placed into ISS orbit, and the Vostochny cosmodrome in eastern Russia near the Chinese border lacks adequate infrastructure.
“A lot of space missions rely on single points of failure like this, especially for programs that are sort of winding down, like the ISS,” Amato says.
Indeed, the days of the ISS were already numbered. Originally it was due to write-off in 2020 and had several stays of execution. But under current plans, it will be allowed to gradually lower its altitude from next year until 2030, when its final crew will strip it of useful and historic equipment and allow it to continue its slow fall toward Earth, eventually burning up sometime in 2031. When this happens it will create a spectacle that was described as “400 tons of flaming chunks flying through the upper atmosphere at orbital speeds.”
Without Russia's participation, NASA would have to invest more money and resources to ramp up and keep the ISS operational—a daunting prospect even without considering that the project is in its final stages of life.
But Amato doubts the US is ready to let the ISS die just yet. Without the ISS, the US and Europe will have no destination in space for astronauts, and there is little reason for them to launch anyone into orbit until projects such as commercial space stations and lunar settlements are still far off. This contrasts with China, the US's main economic rival, which has a thriving space station.
“It won’t look very good,” Amato says. “And this platform definitely allows for a ton of incredible research, so it would be a huge loss.”
When construction of the ISS began in the 1990s, the geopolitical climate was different. The Soviet Union had collapsed and there was a desire to create a project that would promote cooperation between the two former superpowers. The ISS was carefully designed to not just encourage collaboration, but to require it: Russian orbital segment (ROS), controlled by Roscosmos, provides propulsion to keep the ISS in the correct orbit and avoid danger, and US orbital segment (USOS), operated by NASA and the European, Japanese and Canadian space agencies, provides electricity from solar panels. Neither part can survive without the other.
But things didn't go so smoothly, and relations between the US and Russia were as tense in space as they were on Earth – a situation worsened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and then a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Now, if Russia completely withdraws from the ISS project, NASA and other space agencies will have to ferry not only their astronauts, but also more fuel, food and supplies that Otherwise Russia would provide. Other difficult questions remain to be answered, such as whether these agencies have taken over official management and use of the Russian section of the ISS. NASA, given the recent budget cutsI would have to ask myself if this is even possible.
At the time of writing, most of Roscosmos's website was taken offline, and the agency had not responded to a request for comment on the extent of damage at Site 31. The European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency also did not respond to an interview request from New scientist.
NASA representative Jimi Russell said New scientist that agency “Coordinates closely with its international partners, including Roscosmos, to ensure the safe operation of the International Space Station and its crew members.” But Russell declined to answer questions about Russia's continued involvement or whether there are plans in place if it decides to end its participation.
There is time to assess these problems before Russia's next scheduled mission to the ISS in July, but the country will urgently need to develop a plan to address the problems at Baikonur.
Liya-Nani Alconcel The University of Birmingham, UK, says that when it comes to getting people to the ISS, there are other options, such as SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which is already carrying American astronauts into orbit. If US-based SpaceX becomes the only means of reaching the ISS, it will essentially change the situation that existed earlier in the century. For nearly a decade after the retirement of the Space Shuttle, the U.S. unable to independently launch astronauts into orbit and he had to rely on Russia to send people to the ISS.
“This may cause contractual difficulties to ensure launch, but this will be a problem for lawyers, not for engineers,” says Alconcel.
Such a plan would ease some of the pressure on NASA by relieving it of responsibility for suddenly developing a plan to replace Russian knowledge and capabilities.
“Operating the ISS alone by NASA would be a major challenge, since Roscosmos only trains its cosmonauts to perform certain critical functions on the Russian orbital segment—NASA does the same for the American segment,” Alconsel says.
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