Nasa insists space station unaffected by Russian war

By: 3 years ago

Workers pressure wash the logo of NASA on the Vehicle Assembly Building before SpaceX will send two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., May 19, 2020. REUTERS FILE PHOTO

WASHINGTON 鈥� Nasa on Monday insisted tensions linked to the war in Ukraine had no impact on International Space Station operations or the planned return of an American astronaut aboard a Russian capsule later this month.

Mark Vande Hei is due to fly to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov on March 30 after 355 days in space, a new US record.

There have been fears that soaring tensions between the United States and Russia over Ukraine could leave the 55-year-old stranded on the outpost.

But speaking to reporters Monday, Joel Montalbano, Nasa鈥檚 ISS program manager, said: 鈥淚 can tell you for sure Mark is coming home on that Soyuz. We are in communication with our Russian colleagues. There鈥檚 no fuzz on that. The three crew members are coming home.鈥�

鈥淭here鈥檚 been some discussion about that, but I can tell you we鈥檙e ready. Our Roscosmos colleagues have confirmed that they鈥檙e ready to bring the whole crew home, all three of them,鈥� he continued.

Over the weekend, Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin warned again that Western sanctions on Russia could cause the ISS to crash, by disrupting the operation of spacecraft vital to keeping the platform in orbit.

But on Monday, the Russian news agency TASS reported: 鈥淩ussia鈥檚 space corporation Roscosmos has never given its partners the slightest chance to doubt its reliability鈥� and Vande Hei would go home as planned.

Montalbano added that there had been no changes in day-to-day activities.

鈥淎ll these activities have continued for 20 years and nothing has changed in the last three weeks: our control centers operate successfully, flawlessly, seamlessly.鈥�

While the US side of the ISS supplies power and life support, the Russian segment is vital for propulsion and attitude control 鈥� interdependencies that were woven into the project from its inception in the 1990s.

The US is exploring means to keep the station in orbit via propulsion from Northrop Grumman and SpaceX ships, but this hasn鈥檛 happened yet.

Crew swaps involving Russian cosmonauts going to Hawthorne, California to train on SpaceX vehicles and American astronauts traveling to Star City in Russia to train for Soyuz are still planned 鈥渁t this time,鈥� said Montalbano.

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