6/21/2023 0 Comments Typhoon submarine ukraineSpaceX believes they could win some of the launches in a fair competition with ULA. But as of early May, the company was using sanctions to sue ULA and the Department of Defense in order to break a recently signed multibillion dollar no-bid contract to launch 37 military and intelligence satellites. SpaceX, which supplies ISS with its Falcon 9 launcher, doesn’t use Russian engines. Ironically, the short-term effect on the Russian space industry will be minimal, since many launches were paid in advance. “There will be some launch delays while the US and European ramp up to cover the shortfall,” says McDowell. Moreover, the lower stage of Antares is built in the politically unstable eastern Ukraine.Īt least five commercial and research satellites and one Canadian military satellite (M3MSat) has had its launch from Kazakhstan scrubbed due to the US State Department refusing to grant export licenses under the new Russian sanctions. The Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares medium-lift launcher (shown here), which provides cargo supplies to International Space Station (ISS), uses a similar Russian engine that is no longer made. The United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, relies on RD-180 Russian engines for its Atlas V heavy-lift vehicle. “Over the past 20 years the US and Russian/Ukrainian space launch vehicle industries have become steadily more integrated,” says Jonathan McDowell, a launch analyst and astrophysicist at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. US-built satellites and components are now denied export licenses for launch in Russia, NASA has suspended all non-international space station (ISS) contact with Russia, and the long-term supply of rocket engines to two major US launch companies is suddenly at risk. In February, when Russian troops moved into the Crimea peninsula to support pro-Russian nationalists, the main European and US response was to impose trade and financial sanctions on individuals and companies closely connected to the Crimea-separatist movement or to the Russian government.īut the move generated an unanticipated result: a major (if short-term) shock to the billion-dollar space industry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |