Roscosmos, according to various reports, either excluded, or he himself left the expert group to discuss the prospects for creating an international circumlunar station Gateway. The United States, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency (ESA) remain in the project. What really happened and what are Russia's interests in terms of expansion to the moon?
To begin with, it is worth understanding what it is all about. Gateway is a project of a space station orbiting the Moon, developed by NASA and first shown to the general public in March 2017.
Then this project had a slightly different name-Deep Space Gateway ("Spacewalk"). It was supposed to be located at the L2 Lagrange point of the Earth – Moon system, about 80,000 km from the Moon. At this point, the gravitational fields of the Earth and the Moon are the same, and the station could stay there for a long time without significant fuel consumption.
Dream of a lunar station
Then another decision was made. A special Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, abbreviated as NRHO, was developed for the station. In this orbit, the minimum distance from the Moon's surface would be about 3,000 km, and the maximum would be about 70,000 km. One revolution of the station around the Moon would take about seven days.
Why is it impossible to launch the station in a lunar circular orbit, at a distance of 100-200 km from the surface, because there is no atmosphere on the Moon? Unfortunately, this is prevented by the mascons-regions of the Moon that create positive gravitational anomalies. This means that additional fuel will be required to regularly adjust the orbit.
It is assumed that the station will be multi-module and will assemble it directly in the orbit of the Moon. In total, it will include six or seven modules, including residential and airlocks for docking with landing modules. Such a station could greatly simplify the landing on the moon and its study.
Alas, to make Gateway permanently habitable, like the ISS, simply would not work. The fact is that the International Space Station is protected by the Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere, and therefore astronauts working there receive much less cosmic radiation than in the orbit of the Moon. According to the calculations of scientists, an astronaut could fly to work on Gateway for no more than a month, the radiation level there is about 200 times higher than on Earth.
Construction was expected to begin in 2022. However, judging by the speed of commissioning of the SLS launch vehicle, it is unlikely to expect the launch of the first models earlier than in 2023-2024.
Participation or partnership
NASA invited Roscosmos to jointly participate in the creation of the lunar orbital station, but not as an equal partner, as in the International Space Station project, but among other countries participating in the project. The reasons for this are prosaic: the Russian side now does not have such serious trump cards, as in the case of the ISS. In addition, the political situation between the United States and Russia in recent years is not at all the same as a quarter of a century ago.
In April 2018, Dmitry Rogozin, still in the post of Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, said about this: "First, we will definitely not conduct any negotiations to impose on the Americans as partners...
Of course, cooperation here would be good, but not at any cost, we will definitely not go as apprentices."
For two more years, the situation remained uncertain. NASA did not receive enough funding to start full-fledged work, and in 2019, US Vice President Mike Pence outlined a new goal – landing on the Moon, and at the earliest possible time, in 2024. The creation of the Gateway, even partial, was not particularly invested in these plans, both in time and in finance, and therefore the design of the station moved neither shakily nor smoothly. For 2020, in March 2019, it was planned to allocate $ 821 million for the construction of the orbital station, but in the future, as part of the landing in 2024, the planned allocation of funds by the White House was reduced by 321 million to 500 million.
During the work, several briefings were held, including Russia. However, there were no agreements on participation and signing of contracts. Only now, in January 2021, has the project started moving-Japan and then ESA signed participation agreements (Canada did it even earlier).
Obviously, due to the lack of a positive response from Russia, the news about the exclusion of Roscosmos from the expert group arose. As Dmitry Rogozin stated on this occasion: "How can you be excluded from some "lunar group" if we have never been there?!"
Would the boy?
Or maybe Russia should have refused to participate in the creation of the Lunar Station? Let it be on the sidelines, even if not on equal terms, but would there be at least some chance? Most likely, even if Russia had not refused to participate, full-fledged work on the Gateway project would still not have come out.
The previous NASA director, Jim Bridenstine, was surprisingly good about Russia and often offered cooperation. Alas, NASA's desire to cooperate is clearly not enough, it requires the approval of the US Congress for joint activities with Russia, and there is almost no chance of getting it now.
In March 1993, RKA Director General Yuri Koptev and General designer of NPO Energia Yuri Semenov proposed to the head of NASA Daniel Goldin to create an International Space Station. The political situation then was quite different, and relations between the United States and Russia were warming. And yet, even in 1993, in the United States, many American politicians were against the construction of a joint space orbital station with Russia. In June 1993, a proposal to abandon the creation of the International Space Station was discussed in the US Congress; this proposal was not adopted by a margin of only one vote: 215 votes for refusal, 216 votes for the construction of the station.
Most likely, NASA would not be allowed to create a joint lunar station with Russia today. People involved in space are much better at finding common ground than politicians.
Separately, it should be said that at the moment the situation is completely in a state of uncertainty. After the arrival of Biden, the head of NASA, Jim Bridenstine, resigned, and it is still unclear who will be appointed in his place and what relations with the Russian side are waiting for us in the coming years.
Separately, it should be said that Biden, like most Democrats, is drawn to space, specializing in applied tasks, the creation of remote sensing satellites and similar programs. So there is a possibility that in the coming years, lunar projects in the United States will not receive enough attention and funding.
And now what?
What happened was predetermined long ago. And it is good that this has happened now, the situation has been in a state of complete uncertainty for too long. Now it has become clear that it is pointless to hope for a joint project of Russia. This means that if we want to achieve something in terms of the development of the Moon and any lunar programs, we can only do it independently, relying solely on our budget and capabilities. Whether it works or not, only time will tell.
Mikhail Kotov