Russia’s Isolation on Earth Moves Up Into Space
The New York Times
OneWeb, a British satellite maker, canceled launches reliant on Russia, which also announced it would cease selling rocket engines to American companies.
OneWeb, a satellite internet company partly owned by the British government, has canceled an upcoming satellite launch using a Russian rocket and suspended all future launches that relied on Russia, the company announced on Thursday after a tense public standoff with Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.
Also on Thursday, Roscosmos announced it would stop selling rocket engines to American companies.
The moves, both fallout from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, stand to further isolate the Russian space agency from its Western space partners, and limit Russia’s private space activities dramatically. OneWeb’s loss of a reliable rocket provider for launches also poses novel challenges for the company as it had aimed to complete its constellation of 648 satellites in orbit later this year.
