Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, March 1: The European Space Agency has banned collaboration with Moscow in space missions. The agency expressed its regret for the human casualties and tragic repercussions of the war in Ukraine in a statement.
The break in the ties occurs against the backdrop of Moscow’s forcible entry into Ukraine, which has sparked widespread condemnation of President Vladimir Putin’s military effort. The agency stated that taking right judgments is of utmost importance to it, not only for the sake of our programme participants, but also in complete respect of our European values.
“We are fully implementing sanctions imposed on Russia by our Member States. We are assessing the consequences on each of our ongoing programmes conducted in cooperation with the Russian state space agency Roscosmos and align our decisions to the decisions of our Member States in close coordination with industrial and international partners,” said ESA in a statement.
“The sanctions and the wider context make a launch in 2022 very unlikely,” for the Europe-Russia ExoMars rover mission, the agency added.
Notably, the launch was already postponed from 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak and technical problems. It was due to blast off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan in September using a Russian Proton rocket. Postponing a launch often means waiting for months or years until another window opens when planets are in the right alignment.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe needs a bolder space policy, arguing that its sovereignty is at stake if it falls behind rival powers in a key field for technology, science and military competitiveness.
