I think the Russians have made it clear they plan to move out of the ISS by 2024. A couple days ago the head of Roscosmos said some things that raised the prospect of Russia not fulfilling their duties to the ISS; mostly just periodically boosting it into a higher orbit with their supply ships. (The US provides life support). Coincidentally (or not) the last craft to visit the ISS is also the first US supply ship with the capability to take on those boosting duties.
I asked my son (in the space biz). He said Russian rockets and supply missions were still being used for ISS, but not for long, since SpaceX can do people and ULA can do cargo. ULA still uses Russian rocket engines. They are trying to get away from them but not successful yet. First lunch of new system sometime this year.
I do think China holds the ultimate cards. If even China clamps down on Russian trade, then Moscow must pulled out of Ukraine or be doomed.
Not that I think Beijing ever would. But if they did, they’d increase the pressure on Russia 3x.
Boeing:
We have suspended major operations in Moscow and temporarily closed our office in Kyiv. We have also suspended parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines.
But I suppose since nobody can pay them perhaps they had no choice. Though do any aviation people out there know what other implications this might have?
Apple Halts All Sales From Online Store in Russia
Sales have been halted following a plea last week from Ukrainian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking Apple to stop device sales and to block App Store access in Russia.
Apple said in a statement that it has also stopped all exports into the sales channel in the country and disabled traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens.
IMO the Ukrainian leadership is playing this VERY smart.
All tech companies, including google should follow suit. Cut access to products and software across the board.
Speaking of Russia’s collapsing ruble, there’s a meme right now: a little girl walks up to a Russian store counter, deposits a $20 US bill, and says “One MiG-29 please”
Shouldn’t Russia have imposed capital/forex controls before their invasion to better prepare for the inevitable sanctions that would be imposed?
Anyway these sanctions, especially the freezing of central bank reserves, are undoubtedly putting huge pressure on their economy but that is very much a double-edged sword. It could provoke Russia into further escalation, perhaps through cyberattacks targeting the US and EU. And it could have unexpected consequences for the world financial system since Russian lending is now off the market.
This doesn’t mean the sanctions are a bad idea but I really hope the Biden team has thought things through both in terms of minimizing the collateral damage to the world economy and in terms of keeping communication lines with Russia open about possible paths to de-escalation.
Overall it’s a very dangerous situation perhaps the biggest geo-political crisis since Cuban missiles. Putin doesn’t appear entirely rational and if he feels cornered, he could lash out in all sorts of destructive ways.
He’s already almost on the verge of the Hitler shouting scene in Downfall.
If that’s not just using the anime template, I’ll be disappointed.
Today at 1 a.m Moscow, the ISS suffered major malfunction when de-orbit engines suddenly fired unexpectedly. A thorough investigation has been ordered. Regrettably the craft reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific, with the Astronauts still inside. We grieve for the loss of these brave space pioneers. Cosmonauts were doing an unscheduled move of the Soyuz capsule at the time of the failure and are thus safe. They will return to Earth immediately .
So far not too much. Rogozin (head of Roscosmos) put out a few angry tweets in which he reminded everyone that only Russia has the ability to boost the ISS as is periodically required, asking who else would keep the ISS from uncontrolled reentry. Elon Musk replied with a picture of the SpaceX logo.
For now the official line is that the space agencies are still cooperating and all is proceeding according to plan. For reporting on space, you can’t do better than Eric Berger at Ars Technica:
Now, it’s worth pointing out that Russia actually isn’t the only possible source of extra delta-V for ISS. Right at this very moment the new Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft is docked at ISS and part of its mission is to demonstrate propulsion capability. At the moment I believe Cygnus gets to space on Russian rockets, but it shouldn’t be very difficult to stick it on top of a Falcon 9. SpaceX, despite Elon’s tweet, isn’t currently capable of boosting the station. Dragon in either crew or cargo format doesn’t have it’s engines oriented the right way or something. Or maybe it can’t dock in the right place? Not sure exactly.
However, uncontrolled de-orbit is not a short term concern. ISS is high enough that its orbit wouldn’t degrade to that point for several years. In the short term, the more likely problem would be that the Russians would stop operating critical equipment on their side of the station. This could in theory lead to a situation where its crew would have to be evacuated. It still wouldn’t re-enter any time soon, however. There would be plenty of time to plan and build a mission to do a controlled de-orbit.
I don’t believe @AK84’s scenario is even technically possible. The normal way of accelerating the station is using the engines of the Russian Progress supply vessel. Progress 80 is currently docked, but I would be very surprised a single Progress mission that’s primarily delivering cargo has enough delta-V to de-orbit the station in one go. You don’t need as much delta-V to bring it down as you do to raise it, but you do need a significant fraction of it. (Note: you do need as much if you want a lower, circular orbit. But if the plan is to deorbit you can fire retrograde at apogee on consecutive orbits, lowering the perigee but not the apogee, increasing orbital eccentricity until the perigee is low enough to be getting significant atmospheric drag, which will then pull down the apogee. As always, if you want to understand the orbital mechanics better, play Kerbal Space Program for a while.) A normal Progress mission boosts the station by a couple km every month or two for half a year or so. Assuming it uses all its available fuel over the course of its mission (a good assumption, it’s not going to be returning to earth with excess fuel on board), and keeping in mind that it’s normally circularizing, I would estimate that a normal Progress mission could drop the station’s perigee by perhaps 30-40km. That’s not anywhere near enough to bring the station down. People who know what the actual figure is can correct me.
For more on the various possibilities regarding ISS propulsion, Scott Manley has a video, because of course he does:
Thanks for the post! I was thinking about this aspect a couple of days ago and hadn’t seen much on it. I’ll definitely watch the Scott Manley video…he’s one of the YouTubers I subscribe too and I must have missed his video.
The UN voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s actions. It means very little except as a rebuff to Russians claiming it’s a reasonable war. However the list of countries who voted against the motion are a neat little list of nasty states:
Russia
Belarus
North Korea
Eritrea
Syria
The abstaining countries are only slightly better.
I think the primary value is that it makes it easy to start broadcasting the message, “Putin must step down. Step down and the lights come back on. All of this can come to an end.”
Usually, you can’t call for regime change without sounding like you’re anti-democratic or seeking self-enrichment through getting your chosen person in there. In this particular case, however, once everyone except North Korea and Eritrea says that Putin is fully and unquestionably in the wrong on all of this, you can say, “Dude needs to step down. All is forgiven if just that one man leaves his position and the Russian army puts up their hands.”
Notice there that India continues to abstain. That is…sad. But not surprising, I guess.
Does anyone know why South Africa joined disreputable countries like Bangladesh, China, Congo, El Salvador, Pakistan, Sudan, and Zimbabwe in abstaining from the UN General Assembly vote to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was supported by every civilized country on earth?
They have some BS in this article:
I don’t know what the real reason was, though.
That really is the most incredible BS. Is South Africa so deluded that they think “dialogue and mediation” with a lunatic like Putin is possible, when what Putin wants is very clearly for Ukraine to cease to exist and become Russian territory, and is unwilling to brook any compromise on that goal?