March 11, 2024: Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the severe economic sanctions imposed on Russia continue causing problems, especially with the Russian space program and the Russian space agency Roscosmos. These funding reductions hit a lot of non-military government programs.

The costs of the war reduced government income while military spending took priority, but that did not extend to the Russian space program. In theory Roscosmos could assist the military effort but in practice Roscosmos had little to offer. This became evident six months after the invasion when Russia confirmed that it was not withdrawing from the ISS (International Space Station) program by 2024 but would scale back its support because of the economic sanctions. That meant other members of the ISS consortium had to provide the transportation services to and from the space station. The Americans were already using the SpaceX passenger and cargo capsules. Other American and European firms had developed similar capabilities. Currently the ISS is supposed to remain operational until 2030. As of early 2024 the ISS has been occupied 23 years. Russia played a major role in ISS design and construction early in the program, but the Russian contributions have been steadily declining over the last few years.

Even without the Ukraine War related economic sanctions, the Russian space program was in financial trouble and sanctions only made it worse. The Russian space program suffered from a growing number of problems in the last decade. Russian support for the ISS suffers because Roscosmos is also responsible for maintaining the more important Russian GPS (GLONASS) satellites as well as all other military communications and surveillance satellites. These activities take priority over projects involving international cooperation.

Roscosmos has been receiving between $3.4 billion and $3.9 a year until a few years ago. Then the annual budget began to shrink. The 2024 budget is $2.8 billion. This also has to cover the cost of maintaining the Plesetsk military launch site and other military related space program infrastructure. Roscosmos also handles commercial launches at the old Soviet Baikonur launch center in Kazakhstan. Russia rents this site from Kazakhstan and has fallen behind in rent payments. In response Kazakhstan seized Roscosmos assets at Baikonur. Russia is not getting foreign commercial launch business because of the Ukraine War related sanctions. Currently Russia can’t even muster enough troops to threaten Kazakhstan. That is a problem because Russian leader Vladimir Putin recently mentioned Kazakhstan as one of many areas, like Ukraine, that should be absorbed back into Russia. Kazakhstan agrees with Ukraine on the need to oppose Russia on this issue.

Currently Russia wants to eliminate all cooperation with Western nations, especially the United States and Europe. Roscosmos officials point out that is not economically possible or technically preferable. Cooperation with the West has increased the capabilities of the Russian space program and provided economic opportunities for Russia. A much larger space program budget would be required and the loss of Western tech and markets for satellite launch services and satellite manufacturing hurts Russia more than the West. There are other problems, some needing immediate attention.

For example, GLONASS satellites regularly exceed their expected useful life and have to be replaced before they fail. To keep the GLONASS network operational you need at least 18 operational satellites. Currently Russia has 25 operational with replacement satellites standing by. Until 2023 Russia was using GLONASS -K satellites to replace the older GLONASS-Ms that were past their replacement date. As of 2024 all the replacements are the new K2 models. Russia before the sanctions were imposed Russia had been producing 15 to 17 new satellites a year and many were GLONASS replacement models. Russia cannot afford to replace the aging GLONASS birds quickly enough to prevent shrinkage in the number of satellites required for global coverage. The sanctions mean Russia losing sales of satellites and launch services, which involves putting foreign satellites into orbit. The Russian government insists that Roscosmos can survive without Western nations as partners and customers. Roscosmos officials know better and quietly dismiss government plans to put a Russian space station into orbit after 2030. One reason for this goal being out of reach is that about 90 percent of the satellite components come from Western nations. Seeking substitute components from nations willing to break the sanctions, or smugglers who do it for a living, increases the coast of components. Even then, all the needed components cannot be obtained.

All these problems mean the end of a long Russian history with space stations. The Mir space station was the last of eight Russian built space stations and the one that remained occupied the longest at 4,594 days. This 130-ton Mir was brought down in 2001 after Russia joined the ISS consortium. The 420-ton ISS has been in orbit since 1998, when the first of 17 modules was operational. Other nations have built similar, and rather temporary space stations. That effort began in the 1970s with the Russian Salyut 1 but since the 1990s most nations with space programs have put their resources into supporting the ISS. Now the development of commercial space stations will dominate simply because it’s cheaper and more efficient than government-run operations. This has already happened, again without much media fanfare, in the design, launch and operation of space satellites.

While Roscosmos fades away, it is replaced by the expanding Chinese space program, which is expected to become dominant by the 2030s. The most obvious aspect of this is space stations. There are only two in orbit. The ISS is the largest (419 tons) occupied (usually by a crew of six), the longest in orbit (over 24 years) and the longest occupied (23 years). The ISS was initially expected to have a useful occupied life of fifteen years. The ISS was not completed until 2011. The longer it was up there the more space station tech was developed. That led to extensions to the useful life of space stations. Until recently the ISS was to be used until 2028 but it is proposed to extend that to 2030.

Without any new government proposals for a new ISS replacement space station, the only one up there after 2030 would be the Chinese Tiangong 3, which has been occupied since 2021 and was completed in 2022 as a 66-ton unit with a useful life of 15 years. Tiangong 3 was designed to easily be doubled in size and extend useful life to 30 years.

China's new space station could be built so quickly because space tech has advanced over the years. For that reason, there are several proposals by Western firms to finance, build and operate commercial space stations. This development is no surprise to veteran space program engineers and administrators. Most of these new developments go unnoticed by the public because it is kind of boring tech stuff. One exception was commercial firm SpaceX with its revolutionary SLV (Satellite Launch Vehicle) tech which greatly reduced the cost of putting anything into orbit. The Chinese didn’t use SpaceX tech to build their new space station.

The ISS cost about $150 billion to build and operate so far. The Tiangong 3 cost much less because it's now cheaper to build and launch satellite components and China plans to include lots of space for profitable science experiments. The large number of such experiments carried out in the ISS demonstrated that there is a market for this and that’s the motivation behind commercial space stations, especially those using SpaceX SLV tech and similar new tech developed by SpaceX and a number of other firms. Space stations no longer have to be limited to government funded science experiments. Few noticed how much the costs were coming down at the same time income sources increased. Current plans are to have the first commercial space station operational before ISS retires in 2030. More commercial stations will follow.

China seemed to sense this trend when, without much fanfare, they put their first space station into orbit in 2011, This was the eight-ton Tiangong 1. It lasted two years and provided practical experience for the construction and launch of the 8.6-ton Tiangong 2 in late 2016. This one was built to last longer and in early 2017 a Chinese cargo vehicle made an automated docking with the Tiangong 2. This was a major step for the Chinese, who could now maintain two or three people in the Tiangong 2 for up to 30 days with the supplies from one cargo vehicle. China put the first 22 t0n module of the Tiangong 3 in orbit during April 2021 and it has been occupied since September 2021. Two laboratory modules, each weighing the same as the first, are planned for 2022. The first of these was launched on schedule and by the end of 2022 second one went into orbit. This made the initial Tiangong 3 complete. After that three more modules were added to double the crew size to six.

China wanted to join the consortium (United States, Russia, European Union, Japan, and Canada) that built and managed the ISS. There was opposition within the U.S. government from Chinese espionage efforts that had obtained data from the United States for peaceful use of space but then used that information for military purposes. The U.S. passed the Wolf Act in early 2011 prohibiting the American space agency NASA from cooperating with China on the ISS. That ended Chinese efforts to participate in the ISS. Later in 2011 China launched, on schedule, Tiangong 1, its first space station. China was in the space station business while Russia desperately sought ways to regain a place in orbital space and once more be competitive.