Russia asked NASA to end sanctions to save the ISS, but the West didn’t blink

For a few weeks now, the chief of Russia's spaceflight activities has said that the United States and its Western allies must end sanctions on his country by March 31, or face consequences when it comes to partnering on the International Space Station.

At the end of March, the sanctions were in place, and the director general of Roscosmos promised to issue a response on April 2. He did it early on Saturday. His full thread can be found here, but it is fairly simple to summarize: More bluster, more threats, but likely little change.

In his new missive, he is still demanding that the Western sanctions be ended and he is threatening to end the partnership on the International Space Station. The Russian government will soon receive specific proposals from the space station project.

The media coverage today said that Russia will end its cooperation on the International Space Station. Coverage lacks a fundamental understanding of Russia's approach to spaceflight.

At some point in the future, cooperation on the space station will end. Some of the hardware has been in space for 25 years. It's possible that Russia will end cooperation this month, but that's not likely. Even as the war rages in Ukraine, Russia is still committed to operating the station through 2024, and there are talks about possibly extending operations to 2030.

The United States, along with Europe, Japan, and Canada, are unlikely to break the partnership with Russia if NASA continues to operate the station until 2030. The decision is left to Russia.

Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, Rogozin has been threatening to pull the plug on the International Space Station. He and the thousands of employees at Roscosmos have not taken any concrete actions that would initiate that process. Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on a Russian spaceship. The relations between Russian and NASA officials were professional.

It is possible that Putin will no longer be interested in the space station. His decision-making process is not transparent. Walking away from the space station would be like taking a wrecking ball to Russia's civil space program. Without active cooperation with Western nations, Russia would almost certainly no longer be a space power.

In response to his demands for an end to sanctions, the chiefs of other space agencies wrote to him. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote a letter on March 30 stating his continued support for the space station, but repeating that the sanctions will not end. Nelson isn't negotiating from a weakness. Even without the space station, the United States has a vibrant commercial space industry. Nelson knows that NASA could take steps to save the US segment of the space station even if Russia pulls out.

Nelson's letter does not hold threats or bluster. He offered a fig leaf. Nelson writes that if the Russian space industry needs Western components to support the flights of Russian Soyuz or Progress vehicles to the space station, NASA will work to facilitate such technology transfers.

The Russians probably feel the same way.