Hello and welcome to PointOrView The shockwave triggered by Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine have rippled through the space sector where things have taken a geopolitical turn.
The ongoing sanctions against Russia from Europe and retaliatory measures by Russia
have broken down cooperation between ROSCOSMOS and its European partner.
The chief of Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin publicly announced on twitter the decision to
suspend cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches from French Guiana.
The Russian space agency has also refused to launch the next
batch of 36 internet satellites on March 5th, for the European satellite internet provider OneWeb.
The knock-on effect of this disruption means European companies and ESA will have to scramble
to find alternative orbital rides elsewhere. And that’s not going to be easy.
The delayed development of Europe’s homegrown Ariane 6 rocket is really hurting Europe.
If the rocket were operational, it could easily accommodate the European missions on Soyuz rockets
and be a OneWeb provider. Of the existing launch vehicles,
there is zero spare European launch capacity for at least 2 years.
If you look around the world, there is very little spare launch capacity anywhere.
India has been hobbled by a low launch cadence. Japan is struggling to complete
the H3 rocket. The US rockets are all booked up far into the future
and SpaceX is in direct competition with OneWeb. Combine this with the fact that the fate of
International Space Station is also uncertain. There are mounting fears
that Russia’s latest attack could throw the ISS cooperation into jeopardy.
In fact, Russian space agency boss Dmitry Rogozin has issued blatant threat to stop essential
maintenance that keeps the 500-ton space station in orbit if Biden presses on with sanctions.
So, under the circumstances, the one option for Europe that may not be getting
a lot of media play, is China. As strange as it may sound, there’s reason to believe
the ongoing crisis may push Europe closer to China with regards to cooperation in space.
When it comes to space exploration, Europe and China are no strangers to each other.
Astronauts from Europe and China have carried out joint training exercises in the past and unlike
the US, Europe hasn’t imposed a legal restriction on direct cooperation with China’s space program.
In Aug. 2017, European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts trained with their Chinese counterparts
in the first-of-its-kind joint space exercise. Its astronauts and taikonauts
participated in a 9-day sea survival training off China’s coastal city of Yantai.
ESA astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Matthias Maurer took part in exercise. German astronaut
Matthias Maurer is currently on International Space Station as part of the Cosmic Kiss program.
On the Chinese side were 16 Chinese taikonauts including Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu who are
currently on a 6-month mission on the Chinese space station and Liu Boming and Nei Haisheng,
who were part of the Shenzhou-12 crew that set up the new Chinese Station as its first inhabitants.
As part of the joint training exercise, the astronauts donned pressure suits
and entered a mock Shenzhou capsule that was then released into the sea.
The astronauts had to swap their flightsuits for insulation and buoyancy suits before jumping
into inflatable boats. They then practised rescue procedures with both a ship and a helicopter.
The exercise is seen by European astronauts as another milestone towards establishing
good cooperation with China as a space partner.
While this is the first time ESA astronauts have trained in China,
it is not their first collaboration. In 2016, Chinese astronaut Ye Guangfu joined
ESA’s caving course in the Italian island of Sardinia to experience an extreme
environment as part of a multicultural crew. Both training activities were part of the 2015
agreement to boost collaboration between ESA and the China Manned Space Agency,
with the goal of flying European astronauts on the Chinese space station from 2022.
Although there are no firm crew assignments or schedule for when European astronauts
might fly on a Chinese mission, but in a constantly changing global geopolitical
landscape, nothing is off the table. When the Ukraine invasion dust settles,
we may see some new alliances emerge based on priorities and individual aspirations
or various countries and space agencies. We may need to look skywards to see some of
these new partnerships of convenience. After all, space, like politics, can make strange bedfellows.
That’s a wrap. Thanks for watching. And I’ll see you in the next video.