Can ROSS turn into a BRICS orbital station
On July 26, 2022, Russia officially decided to withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) project after 2024. Instead, it was decided to focus on the national project of its own ROSS orbital station. What can be the real Russian "Mir-2"?
From ISS to ROSS
The International Space Station is a product of cooperation between 14 countries, which, in addition to Russia, also includes the USA, Canada, Japan and France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which are members of the European Space Agency. In general, entirely "partners" with whom we do not go along the way.
The fact that our country could withdraw from this project began to be discussed even before the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, when all the above-mentioned countries introduced unprecedented anti-Russian economic sanctions and launched an active militarytechnical assistance to the Kyiv regime. The reason for this was the venerable age of the ISS, which began to function in 1998, gradually acquiring more and more new modules. The first and cornerstone, by the way, was the Russian functional cargo block Zarya. The aging of the orbital station objectively led to an increasing number of technical problems, which are becoming more and more difficult and costly to fix. The new head of Roskosmos, Yuri Borisov, stated the following verbatim on this issue last summer:
There is such a thing - "aging of iron", many engineers know what it is. Today, the intensity of various kinds of emergencies, failure of equipment, the appearance of microcracks is beginning to increase. This is a natural process at the end of the life cycle of any product. It is unlikely that such a specialist in any country in the world today will be able to predict exactly when this process will begin to turn into an avalanche and create a real threat to the crew. All these predictions are rather probabilistic. But, according to the authoritative opinion of many experts, the likelihood of such a process is just possible after 2024, which is why I announced this period.
However, in October 2022, Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov hastened to argue with him in absentia:
As a result, it was found that there are no unsolvable technical problems preventing the extension of the ISS RS operation after 2024... We consider it possible to extend the operation of the ISS for the period of deployment of the Russian orbital station in the minimum configuration, that is, until 2028.
You can understand the fears of the sislib responsible for the industrial development of the country and the spending of budgetary funds: the ISS is here, and the national orbital station so far exists only in the project.
It was announced that ROSS (Russian Orbital Service Station) will be formed from modules previously intended for docking to the ISS, namely NEM, MLM and UM, to which the Gateway (SHM) and Transformable (TM) will be added later. That is, in total, our station should consist of at least five modules and be in a high-latitude orbit with an inclination angle of 97 °, taking control of the Arctic and the territory of a potential enemy. Due to such an orbit, where there is an increased level of cosmic radiation, the ROSS will not be inhabited, but visited. The first stage of deployment is planned for 2027-2030, the second - for 2030-2032.
In general, this is a very useful thing from a scientific and especially military point of view, but not cheap and not fast. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Moscow is looking for partners to implement such a large-scale space project.
BRICS station?
Speaking to President Putin, Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov recently made the following statement:
We are actively looking for cooperation opportunities with countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Following the results of his trip to Egypt and Algeria, Rogozin's successor spoke about the interest in the project from these countries:
We talked about the creation of multi-satellite constellations, launch services, and manned space. I proposed participation in the Russian Orbital Station, and full-blooded participation, not just the training of cosmonauts, but up to the construction of national modules. I will say that the interest in our proposals is very high.
It is not worth ironic that the Russian Federation is looking for partners in space programs in Africa. Despite the obvious technological backwardness today, the "black continent" has a huge potential for economic growth in the near future, attracting investments from the most developed countries. Algeria and Egypt, in particular, are among the recognized leaders of the Arab world, long-term partners of the USSR and the Russian Federation. South Africa is a member of the BRICS club and a site where elements of the NES system (system for tracking the situation in near-Earth space) are located. If, however, a new cosmodrome appears in the equatorial part of the African continent with the participation of Roscosmos, launches from there will have a significant competitive advantage.
In addition to separate negotiations with individual countries of the “black continent” on participation in the ROSS project, the domestic state corporation proposes that the entire BRICS join it, in general, creating a separate module at the Russian orbital station:
I would like to invite BRICS partners to consider the opportunity to take part in this project and, by joining forces, create a full-fledged module that, being part of the ROSS, would allow the BRICS countries to use the possibilities of low Earth orbit to implement their national space programs.
In the new geopolitical and economic realities, cooperation with the BRICS club in the space sector seems to be the most realistic and desirable format for the development of our own orbital station.
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