Russia is prohibiting the export of rocket engines to the United States, which would be used to launch military satellites. This is the first major sanction announced by Moscow in retaliation for U.S. actions over the Ukrainian Crisis. Under terms of the prohibition, this hardware could still be sold if Washington agreed to use the rockets exclusively for civilian payloads.
Russian cooperation on the International Space Station could also be affected in coming years. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced his country will not agree to extend work on the orbiting outpost beyond 2020.
As part of the announcement, Rogozin also said Russia will close their Global Positioning System (GPS) station, if the United States does not install similar stations for their competing Glonass system.
"It would be strange for military payloads to be launched using the intellectual resources of the Russian people to carry out tasks in space that we know nothing about," Rogozin told reporters.
Since retiring the Space Shuttle program in 2011, NASA has been dependent on Russia to send astronauts into space.
The sanction included NK-33 and RD-180 boosters, used to power Atlas 5 rockets for the United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Satellite launches to space could still be carried on using the affected models, as NASA has a two-year supply of the rocket boosters. Further isolation between the space programs of each nation could benefit private space developers.
One of these is Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, which developed the Dragon Spacecraft. This craft is already delivering cargo to the ISS, and a variant of the capsule will soon be able to deliver a human crew. Initial test flights with a live crew could start as early as next year.
Space X is a private corporation, but is highly-dependent on NASA contracts to finance rapid development. The Defense Department offers another potential windfall of contracts for the group. The company lately filed a complaint with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, saying they were prevented from bidding on a series of launches.
Unless the situation resolves itself, this sanction could spell the end of the international space outpost. Russian cosmonauts could live and operate the station using just their modules, but that is impossible for American crews. This news comes as three space travelers prepare to return home.
Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA, Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and the Russian Federal Space Agency, will bid farewell to their station crewmates and close the hatches to their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft, NASA wrote on the space station webpage.
