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Last week, a Russian rocket carrying two passengers from its launch site in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station – the Soyuz capsule – malfunctioned, forcing the ground controllers to cancel the launch and eject the capsule from the aircraft. 39, vehicle crew.
The spacecraft split into two, retreating to Kazakhstan and deploying its parachute. The two people on board, American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were not injured.
The damage to the already fragile reputation of the troubled Russian space industry, as well as to America and most countries of the world that have access to space, are profound.
The incident also comes at a very tense moment for US-Russian relations in space. NASA is developing a new space station in lunar orbit, and Russia wants one. But accidents like the aborted Soyuz add tension to a stressed relationship.
Russian authorities have stopped the manned launches while waiting for an investigation. Since NASA abandoned its last space shuttle in 2011, the Soyuz system – Russian capsules from the 1960s placed above Russian rockets – was the only way to fly over America and its allies. NASA would pay $ 80 million per flight aboard Soyuz.
China is a country that does not ride on Soyuz rockets. China operates human-sized capsules to support its own small space station, but only strictly transports Chinese astronauts. No foreign government has associated with Beijing in the same way that the world's major space powers collaborate on the International Space Station, because of the highly military nature of China's space operations and the planned dismantling of the Beijing station. 2019.
But with the exception of the Chinese, we are stuck on Earth. And the Russian-US space partnership, one of the last places of peaceful cooperation between the two powers, could never recover from the rocket double hits and the discovery late August of a hole in a hole separated from Soyuz moored at the space station.
"We can and must worry," said Daily Beast John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
In the hours following the failed launch, the US authorities quickly reassured the public. "A thorough investigation into the cause of the incident will be conducted," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. tweeted.
"We are confident that our Russian colleagues will know what is happening," Kenny Todd, one of NASA's space station officials, told reporters.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is conducting parallel investigations: one on rocket failure, the other on the Soyuz hole which briefly leaked the limited amount of breathing air supplied by the space station. The hole is either the result of an undetected accident, or of an error in the manufacture of the Soyuz, or of a sabotage committed by a person on the ground or on board the station.
Until the end of investigations, it is almost impossible for non-Chinese to go into space. The six crew members currently on board the ISS (three Americans, one German and two Russian) can safely leave the post thanks to the Soyuz capsules already moored at the station.
No new crew can take their place, however. NASA is developing two new human-sized capsules with SpaceX and Boeing, but the new spacecraft and the associated heavy rockets will not be ready until 2019. "The United States can not do anything until Boeing and SpaceX start piloting a crew next year. "said Logsdon.
In the light of the two Roscosmos incidents, NASA may be reluctant to continue working closely with the Russians once its new spacecraft is ready to take off. "Nothing is more important than the life of the crew, so it makes sense that many people spend a lot of energy to ensure safety," said Roger Launius, a former historian of the crew. NASA, at the Daily Beast. "Any problem is treated very seriously."
It may be that someone tampered with the Soyuz during the August incident and that the capsule is perfectly safe.
Be that as it may, Russia's near-monopoly of Soyuz on manned space flights for the past seven years is coming to an end. "The [October] The urgency as well as the hole in the old Soyuz have dealt a heavy blow to Russia's reputation, "said Bealey Pavel Luzin, an expert on space at the University of Paris. of Perm in Russia.
The blow to the reputation of Roscosmos has side effects. "The space activity of Russia plays two political roles," Luzin explained. "In domestic politics, it is a symbol of the economic modernization of Russia and one of the sources of the legitimacy of authoritarian political power."
"More and more, Russia can not cooperate in space."
Luzin's reasoning suggests that when Russia's space prowess slips, the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin over his country also diminishes.
Even before the Soyuz abortion, Russia was desperately seeking to strengthen its position in international space programs. As of 2022, NASA plans to operate a new $ 2.7 billion space station in lunar orbit.
NASA has relied heavily on the Russians to help build and maintain the International Space Station in Earth orbit – to the extent that the Russian crew lives and works in a completely separate part of the station where find the connection rings and the fuel supply – the new Lunar The gateway station could be deployed without any involvement of Russia.
"Discussions about Gateway International's potential contributions to international space agencies, including our partners on the International Space Station, are underway," NASB spokeswoman Kathryn Hambleton told The Daily Beast.
Feeling that he could be cut off from the lunar gateway, Roscosmos threatened in September to build his own lunar station. But it is a vain threat unless Moscow suddenly becomes much richer and its space technologies make enormous progress. "Russia is not able to act separately in space," Luzin said.
Increasingly, Russia can not act in space in cooperation, no more. Capsule leakage and rocket fire have undermined the country's leading role in international space exploration. And while the United States can afford to develop its own ships and space stations, Russia can not. The more the Russian spacecraft breaks down, the less other countries are likely to work with the Russians.
In the short term, it almost stops the whole world. In the longer term, it is the Russian space industry that could end up permanently entrenched.
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