Cold War in Space

It all began with the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 bill enacted by the US Congress* that blacklisted a number of Russians said to be involved in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Russian lawmakers retaliated with sanctions of their own on some US officials (as well as with the Dima Yakovlev Law, banning US adoption of Russian orphans). The affected Americans laughed it off, saying they weren’t planning a vacation in Siberia anyway.

The current round of US sanctions, triggered by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its alleged meddling in eastern Ukraine, has kicked things up a notch: into space, and Russia has decided to use some serious leverage.

Since 1975 and the Apollo-Soyuz flights, space has been treated as an area of international cooperation that is – literally – above the Russian-American fray. And the International Space Station (ISS) has been held up as a major symbol of peace and human progress that defies geopolitics.

All of this may be about to change.

Since the US ended its shuttle program in 2011, Russia has been the only country with launch capacity to carry humans to the giant orbiting research lab that is the ISS. As a result, the US depends heavily on Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. And while President Barack Obama told NASA that the space station should be in service until at least 2024, Russia has announced that, as far as it is concerned, the station will be decommissioned and de-orbited into the ocean after 2020.

The announcement was made by Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of defense and space, Dmitry Rogozin, who, as it happens, is on the US blacklist.

“Simply circling the Earth and earning something on cosmonaut delivery to space – that’s not enough for this great space country,” Rogozin said, adding that Russia will now focus on more lucrative projects.

In another blow, Rogozin said that Russia will no longer sell its RD-180 rocket engines to the US. This prompted a report by the US Department of Defense, warning that loss of these rockets would require immediate funding to develop a home-grown replacement. The Russian-made engines powered Atlas V rockets, used to launch commercial satellites as well as several NASA research programs, like the Mars Science Laboratory.

At present, the US has 16 stockpiled engines purchased from Russia, enough to last two years. Will the standoff between Moscow and Washington continue that long? If so, Russian officials may not be the only ones to feel the pain of sanctions.

* Passed at the same time the long-reviled Jackson-Vanik Amendment was repealed.