The war in Ukraine has extended geopolitical tensions between the United States and Russia into space. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, had thus threatened to no longer guarantee the maintenance in orbit of the ISS, which until now has been provided by the Progress cargo ship. Faced with this major risk, NASA then began to work on an alternative solution that would make it possible to do without the Russian part. This solution has just been found: the United States has succeeded in controlling the orbit of the ISS using the Cygnus cargo ship from Northrop Grumman. For the record, the Cygnus cargo ship is also the first commercial vehicle to control the orbit of the station (Progress is financed by the Russian state).
The Cygnus cargo ship docked to the ISS
The United States and Europe can therefore breathe. Now the threats of Dmitry Rogozinthe director of Roscosmos, will no longer weigh in the balance. There was an urgent need to act: Rogozin had threatened to “let go” of orbital control of the ISS while specifying that this would inevitably lead to a crash on earth and probably on American territory. As for Northrop Grumman, it is an understatement to say that the current situation offers them a gold contract with NASA.
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