Western sanctions leave Roscosmos with massive financial setbacks

Much of the information provided by Russian media or government officials is part of propaganda. Such reports are part of the information war conducted by the Russian Federation.

According to information provided by Andrei Yelchaninov, Deputy Head of Roscosmos, severing contracts with Western companies and governments cost the Russian enterprise 180 billion roubles, or about £1.65 billion. He cited the main reasons as the suspension of the Mars mission (ExoMars) planned jointly with the European Space Agency ESA and the halting of Soyuz rocket launches from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The country, which aspired to be among the space powers before the invasion of Ukraine, is now lagging behind the leaders.

Yelchaninov declared that rebuilding the company's position would be no problem, as exporting services and products is still possible, but to Asian, African, and Middle Eastern markets. However, according to Yelchaninov, this requires a very precise and long-term strategy, as the competition there is very strong. The goal is to return to the export values before the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation, which were in response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

This is not facilitated by reducing the number of missions carried out. It is enough to mention that in 2023, the Russians sent only 19 carrier rockets into space. The USA sent 110 such missions, and China - 66 for comparison. The year 2024 might be even worse for the Russians, as they have launched only eight rockets so far.

Yelchaninov, however, claims that despite the difficulties, losses are decreasing. Alongside exporting to new markets, Roscosmos is supposed to save the Russian space sector by building a new space station, ROS, which Moscow intends to replace the International Space Station (ISS). Its construction is to be carried out between 2027 and 2033. Russian declarations and forecasts should, of course, always be treated with great caution.

Financial problems are not the only ones that Roscosmos faces. The Russian space agency also struggles with technical and organisational problems. Evidence of the former are failures happening during successive Russian space missions. One of the most notorious incidents in recent years was last year's failed return to the Moon.

The Luna 25 probe, which was supposed to be the core of the first Russian (then Soviet) lunar mission since 1976, crashed into the surface of our natural satellite. If you believe the Roscosmos statement from 20 August 2023, during the orbit lowering manoeuvre, an anomaly occurred, resulting in loss of communication and a crash on the surface.

Photos taken by NASA confirmed the existence of a crater approximately 20 metres in diameter on the Moon's surface at the site where Luna 25 was supposed to land. Western experts at the time pointed to the isolation of the Russian space industry from modern Western technologies and their replacement with Chinese or hastily cobbled together domestic solutions as the cause of the failure.

The mission was also supposed to be a prelude to the construction of a Russian-Chinese lunar base in the 2030s. By comparison, just three days later, India's Chandrayaan-3 mission probe, under the auspices of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), landed on the Moon's surface, and a day later, the Pragyan rover walked on the Moon's surface. A little later, on 20 January 2024, Japan's SLIM lunar lander of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) landed on the Moon. The Chinese also completed a successful lunar mission.

The same applies to the new generation rocket family Angara programme. The launch of the Angara A5 carrier rocket was delayed by a few days in April. First, a pressure increase system failure in one of the tanks was detected, and the next day the mission was cancelled due to a launch control system failure. Work on the rocket, intended to be the successor to the Proton M, has been underway since 1995, and its first launch took place in 2014.

Since then, the Angara rockets have made only four flights. Of course, Americans or Chinese also encounter problems (in the case of Space-X, they are even expected), but both superpowers have a completely different scientific, technical, and financial potential than Russia, so in a sense, they can afford setbacks.

It is also impossible not to mention the organisational problems with Angara. The A5 version of the rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. During its construction, more than 17,000 cases of legal and regulatory violations were recorded. To investigate them, 140 criminal cases were brought, and the financial losses were estimated at several billion roubles.

The situation in the Russian space industry was certainly not improved by a bailiff's seizure of the legendary Baikonur Cosmodrome infrastructure in 2023. The reason was the debts of the Russian Space Infrastructure Center to the Kazakh-Russian joint venture Baiterek, which estimated environmental damage caused locally by the launches of Soyuz-5 rockets. The bailiff's actions were preceded by public criticism of the Kazakh authorities by the Roscosmos management, which in turn was a response to the postponement of the construction of a new launch site.

Given the above, the optimism of the Roscosmos deputy head seems not entirely justified. Of course, the countries of the Global South may be reluctant to cooperate with NASA and American commercial companies or even ESA, but the Russians must face increasingly strong Chinese competition and new, emerging powers. Roscosmos thus faces increasingly strong rivals on the horizon, and the war and sanctions-torn Russian state loses more on each setback than the wealthier leaders of the space industry.