What Does Russia Want This Time?
Statement on International Space Station Investigation, NASA
“On August 29, 2018 a small hole was discovered on the International Space Station. This resulted in a pressure leak. The hole has been identified and fixed by Space Station crew. Russian media recently reported that General Director Rogozin said the hole was not a manufacturing defect. Ruling out a manufacturing defect indicates that this is an isolated issue which does not categorically affect future production. This conclusion does not necessarily mean the hole was created intentionally or with mal-intent. NASA and Roscosmos are both investigating the incident to determine the cause. The International Space Station Program is tentatively planning a spacewalk in November to gather more information. On October 11, American Astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin will launch to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Administrator Bridenstine is scheduled to attend the launch and plans to meet with Mr. Rogozin. This will be their first in-person meeting. They had a telephone call on September 12 during which they discussed the International Space Station leak.”
Musk underprices space launches to squeeze Russia out of market, says Roscosmos CEO, TASS
“SpaceX CEO Elon Musk quotes knock-down prices on launches of his spacecraft at 40-60 million US dollars to squeeze Russia out of the space market, CEO of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said on Monday. Russian expert slams Musk’s use of booster relaunch as gimmick to show off to investors “If you compare the price Musk sells his rockets to Pentagon at and the price he quotes for them on the market, you will see that this is nothing but pure dumping. In order to drive Russia from the market he sells launches at 40 to 60 million dollars while being paid 150 million for a launch by Pentagon,” he told Russia’s TV Channel One.”
Roskosmos Chief Says Space Station Hole Was ‘Deliberate’, RadioFree Europe
“Rogozin, who heads the Russian space agency Roskosmos, said in an interview on state-run television that an expert commission had wrapped up its initial findings. “The first commission has already concluded its work. It has factually reached the conclusion that rules out any manufacturing defect, which is important for finding out the truth,” he said. “The version that now remains is it was a deliberate act, and a second commission will determine where this occurred,” Rogozin added.”
Keith’s note: Russia clearly wants something. So, true to form, they make conflicting statements to the media – some versions are aimed at domestic audiences, others are aimed at external audiences. The fact that U.S. astronauts are actually living on the same space station that they supposedly sabotaged and that they’d need to ride the damaged Soyuz home shows just how silly this whole thing is.
To counter this non sequitur Roscosmos deflects attention away from the real underlying issues to the whole SpaceX conspiracy thing without noting that Russia continues to cut its own space budget and has limitations on its ability to compete in a rapidly evolving space sector. When Boeing and SpaceX start to launch U.S. crews to the ISS, a steady source of income for Soyuz flights will more or less evaporate with no obvious replacement customer in sight. But worry not, a solution to placate Russia’s issues is always found. Its one of those ‘two steps forward one step back’ things.
I suppose they are laying the ground work to announce they want to stop supporting the ISS, since they are not able to afford it anymore. This is why I find the Senate debate on extending the ISS so amusing. Any extension requires the ISS partners to agree to it and fund it, and I suspect that the partners, especially Russia, are ready to move on. If the other partners don’t agree to the extension the U.S. will either have to go along or pay big $$$ to buy them out.
And this may be another motive of Russia, which is to have NASA pay Russia a lot more money to provide support, or to have NASA offer to pay them to be part of the Gateway. Yes, Russia has become addicted to the money NASA provides them for ISS support and given the state of their economy they want more of it.
In terms of SpaceX, it will be interesting to see if they file a complaint with the WTO over it.
They just announced some vague plans to work with China on a lunar surface base/station. China does have money to pay them, but I’m not sure how willing they would be. As far as the WTO goes, why would they waste the legal fees and political capital? They don’t have a case, and just the statements and press coverage let them score some points for free.
True, but t would be just another way to get symathy for their complaints about how unfair the new world in space is.
Keep in mind the struggling Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s Very Far East that is the future of Russian spaceflight is in fact a heckuva lot closer to all of industrial China than it is to anywhere in imperial Russia. Practically across the street instead of at the far end of a perilous supply chain traversing all of Siberia. I’m not sure what to make of that , but potentialities go in all directions, not all of them positive.
It would seem to me that as far as SpaceX “dumping” is concern, the Russians still don’t understand capitalism and competition. When Martin-Marietta was attempting to market the Commercial Titan Launch vehicle, they were proposing to charge $120M a launch, while Airane Space, subsidized by the French government at $78M or so, considerably less than MMC. To me, this didn’t make sense, but since I was nothing but an engineer, management pressed on. They sold three launches commercially, and the fourth to NASA. After that, they ceased production of the vehicles. I don’t recall them filing a complaint with the WTO.
Hopefully, if the Russians decide to pull out of the ISS, either by decoupling their modules, or simply refusing to pay to maintain the station, we will either be able to commercialize it, or Congress, and us taxpayers will simply have to come up with the bucks! One way to help do that is to cancel SLS and the Gateway, and let SpaceX, Blue Origin, Bigelow, et al, take us directly to the Moon and on to Mars.
Ad LEO! AD LUNA! Ad Ares! AD ASTRA!
I’m not sure. Plenty of companies use legal accusations against their competition, true or not, to improve their market share. That sounds like what the Russians are doing with respect to SpaceX. As far as the WTO and Commercial Titan are concerned, the WTO didn’t exist until 1995, three years after the last Commercial Titan flight. If the timing had been different, I could imagine the Clinton administration taking the matter to the WTO.
“But worry not, a solution to placate Russia’s issues is always found. Its one of those ‘two steps forward one step back’ things.”
Perhaps, but by appeasing institutionalised sociopathy all you *really* get is more sociopathy.
Russia is not alone in reacting to embarrassing news with a flood of conflicting and contradictory statements and accusations which seem intended to divert attention and shift blame.
Elon Musk to Mr. Rogozin: “Sue us”.
Since the 1917 Red Revolution, the Soviets and now the imperial Russians have perfected the fine art of formal DoubleSpeak . Spokesmen like Dmitry Rogozin are masters at it; weasel words carefully served. Like when he claims SpaceX is underpricing Falcon launches to drive Russia out of the launch market. Dmitry has that exactly 180° reversed…it is in fact Russia who has jacked up the price of Soyuz rockets and taxi seats on Soyuz TM crew craft for purely political greed. I can’t say for sure what’s going on with RD-180 and RD-191 engine sales these days , except that it’s likely the prices for those are also being monkeywrenched by Russia at the highest level. Dmitry also conveniently forgets that the US paid for the development and construction and subsidized the launch of the core Russian ISS modules as the Soviet Empire was crumbling. I do not expect the pricing tactics to change much going forward. Spaceflight is one of the very few economic sectors that has the luxury of living outside the sanctions placed on Putin’s Russia , but it’s far from being a level field of mutual apolitical endeavour.