Tensions between Moscow and Washington had increased significantly in the space arena after the announcement of US sanctions against the Russian aerospace industry in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
The United States will transport a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station on Wednesday, October 5 aboard a SpaceX rocket, a mission highly symbolic amid the war in Ukraine.
Anna Kikina, the only Russian cosmonaut currently on active duty, is part of the Crew 5 crew, which also consists of two Americans and one Japanese. This is the fifth regular mission to the Space Station (ISS) to be operated by SpaceX on behalf of NASA. The launch is scheduled for noon Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where mild weather is expected.
Strong tensions between the two countries
Two weeks ago, an American took off for the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz rocket. This long-planned astronaut exchange program has continued despite very high tensions between the two countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February. Ensuring the operation of the ISS has thus become one of the very few topics of cooperation between the United States and Russia.
Transporting another nation’s citizen is “a huge responsibility,” Kathy Lueders, deputy administrator at NASA, said at a news conference in late September. When asked about the current relationship with the Russian space agency Roscomos, she said: “Operationally, we have very much appreciated the continuity of the relationship, even in a geopolitically very difficult time. The head of the ISS at NASA, Joel Montalbano, also praised the “excellent support from Roscosmos” for these joint flights.
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Anna Kikina, 38 and an engineer by training, will be the fifth Russian professional cosmonaut to go into space. “I hope that in the near future we will have more women in the cosmonaut corps,” she told AFP in August. It will also be the first spaceflight for American astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, but the fifth for Japanese Koichi Wakata.
After a journey of about 30 hours, their ship will dock at the station on Thursday, which is developing at an altitude of about 400 km. Crew-5 members will join the seven people already on board (two Russians, four Americans and one Italian). A few days of handover are planned for the four Crew 4 members before being sent back to Earth.
Crew-5 will have to spend about five months in orbit, conducting more than 200 scientific experiments, including more than 70 new ones aboard the flying laboratory. Anna Kikina will also be the first Russian to fly in a Falcon 9 rocket designed by billionaire Elon Musk’s company.
Russia wants to leave the ISS
The latter intervened in discussions on Ukraine on Monday, urging his Twitter followers to vote on his own proposal to settle the Kyiv-Moscow conflict. In particular, this implied the surrender of Crimea to Russia. The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, still on Twitter, replied that he should “fuck off”.
Tensions between Moscow and Washington have increased significantly in the space arena after the announcement of US sanctions against the Russian aerospace industry in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Russia announced this summer that it intends to leave the ISS “after 2024” in favor of setting up its own orbital station – without setting an exact date for withdrawal.
The head of manned flights on Roskosmos, Sergei Krikaliov, told him on Monday “hope” that the Russian government would agree to an extension of participation in the ISS after 2024. The Americans have already stated that they intend to continue operating the station until 2030.
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As things stand, the ISS cannot function without one of the two segments that make it up, one American and one Russian. The latter ensures in particular its maintenance in orbit thanks to a propulsion system. Between 2011 and SpaceX’s first flight to the ISS in 2020, Russia was the only country able to transport astronauts there to the station, billing NASA for seats aboard its rockets. The loss of this monopoly means a significant deficit for the Russian space program.
The exchange of astronauts this year, which will have to be renewed in the future, will take place without financial compensation.