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MOSCOW – Russia and China have agreed to build a base on or around the Moon, the latest signal of geopolitical maneuvering in space and an apparent rebuke from the United States.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, this week signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration on the joint creation of what they call the International Scientific Lunar Station.
The memorandum of understanding between the two governments is the latest sign that Russia sees its future in space primarily as a cooperative effort with the Chinese space program rather than with NASA, its main partner for the past 25 years.
NASA had invited Russia to join a US-led lunar project called Artemis.
The project with China will be “guided by the principles of the equal distribution of rights and responsibilities” and “will promote cooperation … with open access to all interested nations and international partners,” the Russian space agency said in a statement. press release published after the memorandum. signed Tuesday.
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The Roscosmos statement said that the objective of the lunar station with China will be to strengthen scientific cooperation and promote “the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in the interests of all of humanity ”.
This formulation echoes Russian criticism of the NASA-led Artemis Project, which also proposes the construction of a moon-orbiting space station as the basis of a larger international effort to explore the lunar surface.
Last year, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin criticized the NASA effort as some sort of NATO political project in space.
“With the Lunar Project,” Rogozin told Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda in July, “we are seeing our American partners depart from the principles of cooperation and mutual support that have developed during cooperation on the ISS. They don’t see their program as international. , but similar to NATO, “he added.” We are not interested in participating in such a project. “
NASA and Roscosmos were the two main partners responsible for the construction and operation of the International Space Station, or ISS, a project started 20 years ago and which was the ultimate expression of post-Cold War reconciliation. between Russia and the United States.
But that relationship seems to be slowly eroding as relations between the United States and Russia deteriorate.
The Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, almost 60 years ago, setting off an intense race with the United States. The United States put astronauts on the moon eight years later.
Moscow has never landed cosmonauts on the moon, and in recent years its space program has failed, struggling with corruption and quality control issues, while the U.S. commercial space industry and the Chinese space program progressed, threatening to far overtake the once-legendary Moscow one. program.
In China, the state-owned newspaper Global Times ran a front-page article celebrating the deal with Russia, telling readers that Washington was trying to position itself to dictate the terms of future international activity on the Moon and beyond. beyond, in deep space.
“To participate in defining the direction of space exploration and have a say in shaping the rules, China and Russia must be at the forefront of space exploration and promote balance and development. ‘fairness with force and real action,’ he said.
Memoranda of understanding are little more than the first steps towards a project, but they are symbolic and indicative of the political tides on which all space programs – be it Russia, China or the United States – are moving.
In the shorter term, Russia and China have announced that they will coordinate various robotic missions to explore the moon.
The US government bans NASA from cooperating with the Chinese space agency. China’s space program, operating in relative isolation, has made major strides in the past decade. Unable to join the International Space Station, Beijing focused on creating its own national space stations.
Details of what its proposed lunar station with Russia will look like are unclear at this time.
The Roscosmos statement said it would be a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and / or orbit of the moon” to facilitate a wide variety of research and exploration efforts. , with and without crew.
In other words, the international lunar station looks a lot like a Russian-Chinese response to the NASA-led Artemis project.
However, projects like these take years to get started, and the Russia-China memorandum is the first in a long list of required steps. And while Russia has yet to officially accept NASA’s invitation to join Project Artemis, it has yet to officially reject it.
“I think it’s kind of a diplomatic negotiating game,” Pavel Luzin, an independent Russian space policy analyst, told NBC News. “Russia has nothing to offer China in a China-led lunar program, and Russia certainly needs to continue its space cooperation with the United States and Europe (as well as with Japan and Canada). beyond the conclusion of the ISS program.
Luzin says it remains unclear whether Rogozin’s harsh rhetoric regarding Project Artemis represents official Russian policy.
“Rogozin has said that we are not going to join Artemis, but it seems that this is probably only his personal opinion rather than the official and final decision of Russia,” Luzin said.
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