Elon Musk hinted that SpaceX could help save the International Space Station (ISS) if Russia tries to sabotage it due to tough US sanctions on the country. The ISS is a multinational collaborative project involving several countries, including the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency (ESA).
While cooperation between NASA and Roskosmos (the Russian space agency) has remained strong despite serious political differences between Russia and the United States, the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions now threaten to cause irreparable damage to relations between the two countries' space agencies. countries.
Elon Musk says SpaceX will come to the rescue of the International Space Station if Russia tries to deorbit it. Musk's response comes after an angry tweet by the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, complaining about US sanctions on Russia that are preventing the agency from working on the ISS. According to Rogozin, Russian knowledge and technology is needed not only to keep the ISS operational, but also to prevent it from de-orbiting and falling back to Earth. “If you stop cooperating with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall on the USA and Europe?” Rogozin wrote on Twitter. In response to this tweet, Musk simply posted the SpaceX logo, indicating that the company is ready to take responsibility for protecting the ISS if the situation warrants it.
The SpaceX CEO also posted a modified image of the ISS, which showed the space station without the Russian segment, with a SpaceX Dragon attached instead. The International Space Station is divided into two sections: the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS), which is operated by Russia, and the United States Orbital Segment (USOS), which is operated by the United States and other countries. While the Russian segment includes six modules, the US segment consists of ten modules, with support services shared between NASA and the Japanese, Canadian and European space agencies.
