Soyuz in French Guiana - How Fragile is This Program?

[Burninate]

Newly chilly relationships between Russia on the one hand, and the US & EU on the other hand, seem to be at least threatening the agreement wherein they export their stockpile of RD-180 rocket engines to the US to use on the Atlas V rocket, and raising questions about the extension of the International Space Station program with its crew vehicle & propulsion dependencies on Russia.

But that's not all Russia exports to these parties.  The Russia-ESA joint project to launch Soyuz vehicles from a French spaceport in South America, the ELS pad at GSC, first reached orbit in 2011.  Is this program threatened by evolving geopolitics as well?

[Lar]

Great topic!

mod hat on>>>> be careful, think before you post, watch out, this is potentially a volatile topic. I deleted two posts already!

[Jim]

  Is this program threatened by evolving geopolitics as well?

no, it would be another case where Russian would be doing more damage to itself

[asmi]

no, it would be another case where Russian would be doing more damage to itself

What makes you think that Russia would even consider that? Everything it did so far was response to another party's actions..

[RonM]

I think Russia would keep this program going, perhaps even increasing it. With the new Chinese-Russian space agreement, it seems to me to make more sense for Russia to try to increase cooperation with ESA. Pulling ESA towards the East would strengthen their new international bloc and weaken US influence.

[asmi]

I think Russia would keep this program going, perhaps even increasing it. With the new Chinese-Russian space agreement, it seems to me to make more sense for Russia to try to increase cooperation with ESA. Pulling ESA towards the East would strengthen their new international bloc and weaken US influence.

I don't think Russia cares much about US influence as long as it doesn't interfere with the actual work. So far ESA is keeping politics out of space cooperation, and if it stays that way nothing would change.

[baldusi]

I don't believe ESA will do anything to end this relationship because they lack any means to replace it in less than a decade. And the Russians have got an excellent deal where they get payed a lot and it's almost 100% Russian work (I heard that even the trucks that download the stages are driven by Russian drivers).
Plus, this is the only way to launch Russian LV to less than 51.6 deg orbits. Might even see a certain argument for ESA/Roscosmos/CNSA agreement.

[sdsds]

So far ESA is keeping politics out of space cooperation, and if it stays that way nothing would change.

I would appreciate anyone sharing informed speculation about which European governments or governmental agencies would be involved in any decision to conflate geopolitics and space cooperation. Is this something European national governments can do individually? Or would action only be taken through a multi-national entity?

[Velomir]

A lot of Galileo sats are going to be launched on Soyuz from Guiana.

[Jester]

has been discussed before, no issue.

[ChrisWilson68]

I think Russia would keep this program going, perhaps even increasing it. With the new Chinese-Russian space agreement, it seems to me to make more sense for Russia to try to increase cooperation with ESA. Pulling ESA towards the East would strengthen their new international bloc and weaken US influence.

Remember, Ukraine isn't primarily a US-Russia conflict, it's primarily a Europe-Russia conflict.  The whole thing was triggered by a dispute about Ukraine signing a treaty to integrate more with the EU.  The US was pulled in because the US is an ally of the EU, not the other way around.

The big gas deal Russia and China signed was about selling gas to China instead of Europe.  The US doesn't buy any Russian gas.  Ukraine and the rest of Europe buys a lot.

[sdsds]

With due respect for the interesting commentary by ChrisWilson68, I hope we can avoid extended discussion of why any European entity might take action, because there are (ahem) differing perspectives on all that. Can we stick with the issue of whether there are any indications Soyuz cooperation is threatened, and indeed whether there is any mechanism of action which could conceivably threaten it?