The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, admitted that the conclusion of a new contract between the state corporation and the British company OneWeb could be disrupted due to US sanctions.
At the same time, he stressed that the company positively assesses the experience of working with a subsidiary of the Russian state corporation Glavkosmos and the chances of signing a new contract are good.
"The only thing that can theoretically interfere is sanctions from the United States, which may be aimed at banning Russian launch vehicles if US — made components are used in OneWeb equipment," Rogozin told Interfax.
At the moment, according to him, the contract is under discussion, in particular, this issue was raised at the meeting of Rogozin with the company's management held in Baikonur.
"Everything will depend on the US sanctions policy. They are trying to destroy as much as possible partnerships and contracts and the possibility of using our launch vehicles, " he added.
On the eve of the launch of the next batch of 34 British communications satellites. All the vehicles were successfully launched into orbit. It was clarified that a total of 288 British aircraft are now in orbit.
In June 2015, Roscosmos signed a contract with Arianespace for 21 commercial launches of 672 communication satellites of the space system of the British company OneWeb on Soyuz-2 launch vehicles with Fregat family upper stages. The contract value was $1.2 billion. In September 2020, OneWeb announced that the number of contracted Soyuz launches had been reduced to 19.
At the end of the same year, the US Department of Commerce imposed sanctions against 58 Chinese and 45 Russian organizations, but the names of some of them are repeated in the list, which narrows it to 41 Russian companies, including Roscosmos.
In addition, nine Russian enterprises of the aviation industry were on the sanctions list. Among the organizations that have fallen under the restrictions of the People's Republic of China are the Chinese gas turbine enterprise AECC, Hafei Aviation Industry, the Beijing Aviation Institute AECC.
Rogozin, commenting on the sanctions imposed, noted that they could hinder further cooperation between Moscow and Washington on the ISS program.
OneWeb is a satellite system of the company of the same name, designed to provide broadband Internet using mobile satellite communication technologies for users around the world thanks to full coverage of the Earth's surface.
