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Ukraine War Threatens Space Cooperation with Russia

#11
Yazata Offline
Yuri Borisov hits the ground running. Russia has just announced that they are pulling out of the International Space Station collaboration at the end of 2024. They say that their plan is to build a Russian space station.

It isn't clear whether they will detach the existing Russian modules and make them the core of their proposed new station.

While the Russian modules do supply some vital functions to the station, two and a half years is long enough for the US/Europeans/Japanese to duplicate them.

https://nypost.com/2022/07/26/russia-to-...n-in-2024/

In this photograph, the big horizontal truss with the solar panels is on the US/EU/Jap side as are the large silvery modules on the top half. (There's a Crew Dragon docked at the far top.)

The Russian modules start a ways below the cross, at the module with those diagonal features (antennas?) beneath the circular feature (which I believe is a docked Cygnus supply capsule seen end-on. The two circular solar panels on either side is the give-away).

There's two Soyuz's docked way at the bottom (or a Soyuz and a Progress.)

If the Russian modules depart in 2024, that should free up space to host the new Axiom modules that will form the core of a new Space Station for after the existing ISS is deorbited in 2031.

So the Russian departure shouldn't spell the end of the ISS and might even represent an opportunity.

The real question is how well the Russian modules could survive on their own. They draw most of their electrical power from the huge panels on the US/EU/Jap side.


[Image: iss-international-space-station-2022.jpg...&strip=all]
[Image: iss-international-space-station-2022.jpg...&strip=all]

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#12
Yazata Offline
(Apr 9, 2022 04:41 PM)C C Wrote: As noted prior, loss of RD-181 engines will put Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket in jeopardy, which suffers from the double whammy of the 1st stage being built in war-battered Ukraine. Officials say they have enough Antares stages to fly two more supply missions to the ISS for this August and next April. Then "the company will need to find another ride to orbit for its Cygnus cargo spacecraft".

Antares isn't dead yet. Northrop Grumman announced today that they are teaming with "new space" startup Firefly Aerospace to reengine Antares and replace its Ukrainian first stage manufacturer, resulting in a significantly new 'Antares 330' with increased payload over the older model. The two companies also propose to develop a totally new medium lift satellite launcher as well, though design details and price are sketchy about that one.

https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/re...ch-vehicle

There's still the problem that the new Antares 330 will take time to make ready. So until the new 'Antares 330' is ready, Northrop Grumman has contracted with SpaceX for three missions to have its Cygnus supply capsules launched to the International Space Station on Falcon 9's. These flights will start in the second half of 2023 when existing Antares are expended, and continue until the new Antares 330 is ready at the end of 2024. I'm personally guessing that Antares 330 might slip, so Northrop Grumman might have to book more than three Falcon 9 flights.

https://twitter.com/StephenClark1/status...3187961856
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#14
Yazata Offline
(Mar 5, 2022 02:13 AM)stryder Wrote: Oneweb was right to suspend it's launch.  Russia originally claimed it could of still gone ahead but attached a bunch of demands, the reality is/was if they had given into those demands, there was no guarantee the launch would of gone without a hitch, so they were best suspending it.

Oneweb just successfully launched a batch of 36 satellites today atop an Indian ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) LVM-3 rocket. And Oneweb is reporting that all 36 satellites are responding properly to commands and are healthy.

This was the first commercial flight for this rocket type, which first flew in 2017. It's designed to be human-rated and is intended to be the launch vehicle for India's Gaganyaan crew capsule.

https://www.isro.gov.in/LVM3_M2_OneWebIndia.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSLV_Mark_III

https://twitter.com/OneWeb/status/1583894797944705024

https://twitter.com/isro/status/1583914256277200896

I particularly like the Indian launch tower, like one of those sculptures of Shiva with all the arms!


[Image: Ffta9-tXgAAssb6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]
[Image: Ffta9-tXgAAssb6?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]

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#15
Yazata Offline
(Apr 9, 2022 04:41 PM)C C Wrote: As noted prior, loss of RD-181 engines will put Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket in jeopardy, which suffers from the double whammy of the 1st stage being built in war-battered Ukraine.

Today they launched the second-to-last Antares from Wallops island Virginia, carrying a Cygnus supply capsule to the Space Station. The launch went fine (Antares is reliable) but the Cygnus is acting up. When commanded to unfurl its two solar power arrays, it only responded by unfolding one of them.

They seem to think that one array will provide enough power to enable Cygnus to dock with the Space Station, but they are still evaluating and assessing.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/ng-crs-18/2022/11...ed-so-far/
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#16
Yazata Offline
Exo-Mars is back from the dead!

This is the European Space Agency Mars rover that was scheduled to be launched this year by a Russian rocket and landed on Mars with a Russian lander. But after the Ukraine War started in February, the Europeans cancelled space cooperation with Roscosmos. Which left their Exo-Mars rover without a ride or a way to get down to Mars' surface.

But word is coming that ESA will contract with America to launch Exo-Mars. The Europeans propose to build their own lander, with US assistance including a throttleable main engine and a radio-isotope power source, but with mostly European technology. But developing the lander will take years and Exo-Mars now has a no-earlier-than date of 2028.

The rocket that will launch Exo-Mars is still undetermined. Falcon Heavy has the capability, but by 2028 a variety of other heavy-lift rockets should be available as well.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/...her-twist/
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#17
Yazata Offline
Today SpaceX successfully lofted another batch of 40 Oneweb satellites on a mission called Oneweb 16. It was launched by B1076 on its second flight, from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Despite its being a comparative rookie, B1076 returned and landed successfully at Lz-1 at Cape Canaveral.

Departing

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1612673379135545350

Returning

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1612675784820547585
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