Even as the commercial space sector grows quickly in the United States as well as in Europe, China, Japan, India and other countries, Russia continues to lack a robust approach to advancing in this area. The Russian government has for years been declaring an interest... MORE

Interest in privatizing space operations by Western companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic has now reached the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, which, for the moment, is focused on technological payloads rather than manned spaceflight. Unfortunately for advocates of Ukraine’s aerospace capabilities, on September... MORE

Polls taken over the last decade show that Russians view their country’s space program as second only to victory in World War II as the key “reference point” in their history. At the same time, it is seen as a symbol of authoritarian modernization their... MORE

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian state-owned space corporation Roscosmos, confirmed during parliamentary hearings earlier this month that Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s space and orbital activities (Roscosmos.ru, June 7, 2021). Before this statement, Rogozin usually made it a point to deny that the... MORE

Russia has been conducting research and development (R&D) on using nuclear power in outer space for years. On May 22, Alexander Bloshenko, executive director for advanced programs and science of Roscosmos, announced that the first mission of the nuclear-powered spacecraft, also known as the transport... MORE

On April 29, a Long March 5B (长征五号B, Changzheng wuhao B) heavy rocket carrying the Tianhe 1 (天和一号) core module of China’s space station was successfully launched into low earth orbit from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, Hainan Province (Xinhua, April 29). It marks the... MORE

On March 9, Russia and China signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the construction of an international lunar research station (ILRS) (Roscosmos.ru, March 9). Though there is no road map toward realizing the ILRS, the Russo-Chinese memorandum raises at least two main questions.... MORE

Introduction China and Russia are the two most influential space players besides the United States. Whereas in the past NASA was Moscow’s partner of choice, many influential Russians now look to China as their main future partner. Sino-Russian cooperation regarding global positioning and navigation satellites,... MORE

Introduction Successful military operations depend upon freedom of action in the warfighting domains of air, space, ground, sea, and cyberspace. Today, effective command and control and situational awareness depend upon radio communications and sensors. Domination of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) enables joint force commanders to... MORE

In recent years, Russia repeatedly demonstrated the increasingly advanced orbital maneuvering capabilities of its satellites by conspicuously moving them closer to Russian, United States and European orbital space assets. These experiments involved the Cosmos 2499 satellite in 2014 (Habr, November 23, 2014), Cosmos 2504 in... MORE