The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced over the weekend that it is pausing international cooperation with the European Union on Soyuz rocket launches from French Guiana.
“In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roscosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches” from French Guiana, Roscosmos said in a pair of tweets, citing a statement by its head, Dmitry Rogozin, reports Space News.
The agency said it will withdraw the 87 employees of several Russian companies that support Soyuz launches there, although the details of that withdrawal are “being worked out.”
Russia has also suspended cooperation with American space agency NASA on the Venera-D Venus exploration mission planned for 2029. The mission was initially planned as a Russia-US venture. However, Roscosmos now says the mission is an independent national project.
The suspension of launches is one of the few levers on space-related issues that Russia can pull to react to Western sanctions without jeopardizing its own space capabilities.
International dependence on Russian space capabilities has declined significantly since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, At that time, Russia threatened to cut off access to seats on Soyuz spacecraft flying to the ISS and halt exports of the RD-180 engines used on the Atlas 5 in response to U.S. sanctions.
In the short term, the suspension of launches will delay a Soyuz launch of two Galileo navigation satellites that had been scheduled for April from French Guiana, with another pair of Galileo satellites scheduled to launch later in the year on another Soyuz.
The European Space Agency (ESA) had also planned to launch its EarthCARE Earth science mission, developed in cooperation with the Japanese space agency JAXA, on a Soyuz in 2023, along with the Euclid infrared space telescope. France was expected to launch its CSO-3 reconnaissance satellite on a Soyuz in early 2023.
In a statement dated February 28, 2022, the ESA said: “Regarding the Soyuz launch campaign from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, we take note of the Roscosmos decision to withdraw its workforce from Kourou. We will consequently assess for each European institutional payload under our responsibility the appropriate launch service-based notably on launch systems currently in operation and the upcoming Vega C and Ariane 6 launchers.”
“Regarding the ExoMars program continuation, the sanctions and the wider context make a launch in 2022 very unlikely. ESA’s Director General will analyze all the options and prepare a formal decision on the way forward by the ESA Member States.”
