Due to the severe economic sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia, the Russian Space Agency decided to take countermeasures against the United States based on the principle of fair diplomacy of "coming without being rude": immediately stop sending rocket engines to the United States. There is also the possibility of terminating technical support for the ISS in the future.
Some people will ask: As a world space power, the United States has also carried out a manned landing on the moon, will it not have its own rocket engine?
We can answer responsibly: there were, of course, and now we really don't. The main reason for this is that the United States pursues pragmatism, and as long as what is made is more expensive than what is bought, it will take out a wad of checks to buy and buy. Of course, on the one hand, this shows that the United States is very confident in its technological strength and manufacturing capabilities, and on the other hand, it also proves that the rocket engines provided by Russia are indeed "cheap and good" and have won the hearts of Americans.
Don't look at Musk's already taking the launch of satellites as a child's play, but in terms of high-power rocket engines, the United States has long been inseparable from the RD-180 rocket engines provided by Russia.
The first is reliability: since the 90s of the last century, the United States has purchased a total of 122 RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, most of which are used in the first stage of the American Cosmos 5 launch vehicle. Since the first flight of the Cosmos 5 in 2002, the RD-180 has performed flawlessly, without a single failure.
The second is high thrust: the RD-180 rocket engine uses liquid oxygen-kerosene as a propellant with a thrust of 390 tons. The most recent launch of Cosmos 5 was on March 1 this year, local time, and the GOES-T meteorological satellite was successfully launched into the scheduled orbit. Previously, NASA's New Horizons Pluto probe, Curiosity rover, and Juno Jupiter probe were all sent into space by Cosmos 5.
It seems that the success of the US aerospace industry is half that of Russia in the military merit medal.
And then there is the cheapest: in the development of liquid oxygen-kerosene liquid rocket engines, the United States has always lagged behind Russia. The reason why both countries want to choose this propulsion plan is because the fuel is cheap, the performance is safe and reliable, and the thrust is very strong. It is said that in 1997, the United States bought 101 RD-180 engines in one go, and the unit price was only $10 million. It's the price of a cabbage.
Currently, NASA also holds 24 RD-180 rocket engines. After Roscosmos decided to stop supplying RD-180s to the United States, it also stopped providing maintenance and technical support to those 24 RD-180s. This move will inevitably have a serious impact on the safety of subsequent US launch missions.
Now let's talk about the ill-fated International Space Station. It was built in 1998 as an international cooperation project jointly led by the United States and Russia and actively participated by 16 countries including Germany, Japan and France. The power of the ISS is provided by the rocket engines of the Russian Progress MS cargo spacecraft. Due to the air resistance in low-Earth orbit, the orbit of the space station is lowered by 2 kilometers per month. Therefore, in order to prevent the ISS from being dragged into the atmosphere by the Earth's gravity, the rocket engine needs to be started at regular intervals to raise the orbit of the space station.
Before the United States imposed sanctions on Russia, the Russian space agency had already issued a warning: if the sanctions caused the Russian space agency to be unable to obtain the relevant spacecraft parts, the International Space Station could deorbit and crash out of control into the atmosphere, and the area where the wreckage fell is likely to be in Europe and North America.
It is reported that the ISS currently has seven astronauts, four of whom are from the United States and two from Russia. According to the scheduled plan, the Russian space agency will launch the Soyuz MS-21 manned spacecraft on March 18, carrying three Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station. It is expected that at the end of March, the Russian Soyuz MS-19 manned spacecraft will detach from the ISS and return to Earth with two Russian cosmonauts and an American cosmonaut Mark.
Everyone is very concerned about whether these planned space cooperation plans can be carried out as scheduled in such tense relations between Russia and the United StatesThere are three possibilities for the future:
First, if all the above plans are completed, it means that Russia has not abandoned the International Space Station and that the United States and Russia are cooperating in the field of space. and is not affected by sanctions.
Second, if the Russian manned spacecraft does not bring back American astronauts when it returns to Earth, it means that there is really a problem with US-Russian cooperation in the field of space. In the future, the mission of American astronauts to and from Earth will be handed over to Musk's space company.
The most terrible thing is the third scenario in which Russia launches an empty manned spacecraft to pick up all Russian cosmonauts from the ISS. This means that Russia has already decided to abandon the ISS.
It is said that if there is "danger", there will be "opportunity". It is reported that the two RD-180 engines supplied to us by Russia will arrive before the end of the year. What is even more gratifying is that the Russian side is very willing to transfer engine technology. What kind of significant impact will this have?Does it mean that the speed of the Chinese landing on the moon and Mars will be accelerated?