Earlier in the week, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin refuted claims that the Russian space agency had allegedly “lost control” of its satellites, stressing that any cyberattacks against the country’s satellites are a “casus belli”.
Russia will stop deliveries of rocket engines to the United States, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin announced Thursday.
“Not only are we refusing to supply these engines [RD-180], but we are also refusing maintenance of the remaining engines. We are talking about 24 more engines”, the space agency head said.
Since the mid-1990s, 122 RD-180 engines for Atlas missiles have been delivered to the United States, 98 of them have been used.
Rogozin additionally announced that Russia will end cooperation on experiments at the International Space Station (ISS) with Germany.
“Taking into account the completely unacceptable actions of our German colleagues, primarily the German Centre for Aviation and Cosmonautics, I turned off one of the telescopes of our space observatory ‘Spektr-RG’, which is located at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth at the La Grange point L2. This is a completely civilian international mission to explore the starry sky”, Rogozin elaborated, saying that Russia has all the essential resources to conduct the experiments by itself.
According to the space agency head, Russia’s space program will face some corrections. He explained that the country will focus on creating satellites in line with the interests of both Roscosmos and the Russian Defence Ministry.
He stressed the space agency will make certain that the satellites it creates will have a “dual purpose” given the “conditions that our country is in now”.
Roscosmos is among the many entities that have faced a wave of anti-Russian sanctions in the wake of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Earlier in the day, the space agency revealed that the last 56 Russian employees had left the space center in French Guiana after Roscosmos suspended its cooperation with the European Union in response to the sanctions.
On Wednesday, Rogozin also refuted claims of Russia’s satellites and Roscosmos’ control centre being “hacked”, warning that any cyberattacks against the country’s satellites are a “casus belli” (a reason for war). His remarks followed allegations on social media accounts that a hacker group affiliated with the Anonymous collective had “shut down” Roscosmos’ control centre.
