#11
Moscow Times
February 6, 2003
Space Cooperation and Iran
By Pavel Felgenhauer

Russian space officials almost immediately recognized the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia as an opportunity to earn some badly needed extra cash. The fleet of U.S. shuttles may be grounded for a year or more. In the meantime, only the Russians can keep the international space station aloft.

The ISS -- an ambitious joint space venture by Russia, the United States, Europe and Japan -- was constructed and has been supplied by Russian and U.S. spaceships. The lion's share of payloads has been sent up via U.S. shuttles that can deliver up to 100 tons at a time.

The Russians deliver much smaller payloads by unmanned Progress cargo spaceships. Moscow is also responsible for providing the ISS with an escape lifeboat, a Soviet-designed Soyuz capsule that is permanently linked to the ISS and can take the crew back to Earth in an emergency.

The Soyuz has a designated six-month lifespan of service in space, and so twice a year the Russians launch a new Soyuz to replace the previous one. During these lifeboat rotations, Russian space officials send up three-man visiting crews that stay on the ISS for a couple of weeks. Two such missions included space tourists (one American and one South African). The ticket for each is believed to have cost some $20 million.

This elaborate procedure for managing the ISS has increasingly annoyed both NASA and its Russian counterpart, Rosaviakosmos.

Although the ISS is being expanded, NASA is still unable to keep on board more than a three astronaut-strong permanent crew because the Soyuz capsule cannot take more than three people in a possible emergency evacuation. Also, the pledge by Moscow to continue to supply Soyuz lifeboats at a pace of two per year is increasingly being called into question because of a lack of money. The failure to send up new Soyuzes could in turn threaten the future of the ISS.

Last October, Yury Baturin -- a former defense adviser to Boris Yeltsin who abandoned politics several years ago to become a full-time cosmonaut -- told me that Rosaviakosmos has a Soyuz capsule ready to go to the ISS in March or April, but severe financial problems may prevent getting another Soyuz ready in time for fall.

Apparently, enough cash has been scraped together to complete a second Soyuz in 2003, but the commitment to supply Soyuz capsules in 2004 is anything but solid.

The idea of bankrolling Russia's ISS commitment by taking paying tourists to space has failed with no more contracts materializing after the first two successful ones.

In December, U.S. officials began publicly talking about the possibility of ditching Russia as a partner in the ISS project because it cannot fulfill its contractual obligations and retaining Rosaviakosmos only as a subcontractor. NASA has been developing its own lifeboat spacecraft with a much larger crew capacity to replace the Soyuz, but insufficient budget funding has slowed the project down.

Now that the entire U.S. shuttle fleet is grounded, it seems rather fortunate that Rosaviakosmos was not ousted from the ISS and that the small, old-style, Soviet-designed Russian spacecraft are still operational and can in theory keep the ISS alive while NASA sorts out its shuttle problems.

However, Rosaviakosmos is still broke. To provide more launches to serve the ISS while the shuttles are grounded, the Russians are demanding immediate cash commitments.

In fact, for more than a year already Washington has been offering to pay Rosaviakosmos in full for the Soyuz lifeboats sent to the ISS. This offer is part of the compensation package the Bush administration has been promising the Kremlin if it stops its nuclear cooperation with Iran and withdraws the more than 1,000 Russian engineers and technicians who are helping Iran build a nuclear power reactor at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf.

Until now, Moscow has resisted U.S. overtures and has continued to sign arms and nuclear contracts with Iran. While close links with Iran are maintained, it's hardly likely that the U.S. Congress will approve budget funds to be disbursed to Rosaviakosmos.

After the imminent occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces, the Bushehr issue may cause a severe rift between Washington and Moscow in the second half of this year.

The first casualty of such a rift may be the ISS, which could end up being closed down and flying without a crew.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.

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