Space Cooperation with Russia: European Vision

Renè Pischel

ESA Permanent Mission in RF, EC

1. Introduction

Today, cooperation with Russia comprises practically all areas of the European Space Agency's (ESA) space activities. Over the relatively short period of a bit more than a decade this cooperation has evolved from fledging contacts to a strategic partnership involving ESA, Roscosmos and the major players in European and Russian industry as well as many scientific institutions in ESA member states and in Russia. More than 15 years of efficient cooperation between ESA and Russia created a solid foundation for advancing this relation into a close partnership in many different areas of space exploration and research.

Legally the cooperation is currently based on an Agreement between ESA and the Government of the Russian Federation on "Cooperation and partnership in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes" signed by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs and ESA Director General in Paris 11 February 2003 and ratified by the Duma and the Federal Council of the Russian Federation in May 2003. The signature of this Agreement has been a major milestone in ESA-Russia relations and has created grounds and wider opportunities for closer and longer-term cooperation of industries in many areas. It significantly broadened the fields of cooperation and emphasized industrial links. In the frame of the Partnership Agreement other more specific agreements have emerged, e.g. agreements on the implementation of Soyuz from the ESA's Spaceport "Centre Spatial Guyanais" (CSG) (2005) and on cooperation in research and technology development for future launchers (2005). Earlier relevant agreements were mostly related to the cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS) and comprise the ISS Intergovernmental Agreement (1998), an Arrangement on cooperation in the development and operations of the Service Module Data Management System (DMS-R) for the Russian ISS Segment and of the Russian Docking System (1996), an Arrangement on the development and utilization of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) for the Russian ISS Segment (1996), a Frame Agreement for the Launch, Operation and Retrieval of ESA Microgravity Multi-User Facilities and Experiments (1996), ISS Flight Order Contracts concerning the implementation of ISS flight opportunities involving ESA astronauts (2001, 2002, 2003 (2), 2005 (2)) and a Contract on the integration of the ESA Automated Transfer vehicle (ATV) into the Russian ISS Segment (1999).

Looking into the future of ESA - Russia cooperation in space the protection of intellectual property becomes more and more urgent. Thus, the conclusion of a Technology Safeguard Agreement between ESA and Russia is of vital importance for continued collaboration especially in the areas of launchers and advanced space transportation systems.

2. Human spaceflight

Cooperation in the field of Human Spaceflight represents the largest share of ESA- Russia collaboration. It goes back to the EuroMir missions of ESA astronauts onboard the Russian Mir space station (1994 U.Merbold and 1995 T.Reiter) and the Perseus mission (1999 J.-P. Haigneré) during which specific training and flight experience, know-how to conduct experiments onboard a space station, and experience in flight operations were gained.

This was continued at a larger scale with the flights of ESA astronauts to the ISS relying on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for launch and return and on using resources of the Russian ISS segment: missions Andromède (2001 C.Haigneré), Marco Polo and Eneide (2002 and 2005 R.Vittori), Odissea (2002 F.de Winne), Cervantes (2003 P.Duque), Delta (2004 A.Kuipers), and the long duration missions Astrolab (2007 T.Reiter) and OasISS (2009 F.de Winne).

These missions have been complemented by a comprehensive program of European science and technology experiments which were conducted onboard the Russian ISS segment. Not only did this program allow bridging the gap until the arrival of the ESA Columbus laboratory onboard the ISS, but it also helped to build up relations with Russian scientists and to shape ESA into a focal point for European scientists for low Earth orbit experiments. Thus, since the first days of the station the majority of Europe's microgravity experiments onboard the ISS has been conducted in the Russian segment and Europe's access to ISS heavily relied on the cooperation with Russia. By acquiring Russian resources (crew time, upload, download, etc.), ESA was able to serve the European science community with valuable flight opportunities and facilitate cooperation between European and Russian scientists in microgravity research.

The paradigm of cooperation in this field has changed due to various reasons: On one hand Roscosmos has activated their own scientific contributions partly as a result of criticism by Russian authorities for having sold-out the majority of Russian ISS resources to foreign partners, mainly ESA, and not having served Russia's reviving science community adequately. On the other hand ESA is now more concentrating on the experiments using the facilities of their Columbus science laboratory which had be docked to the ISS in 2008. Therefore, future cooperation with Russia onboard ISS will be based mainly on joint scientific studies which are of vital interest for both ESA's and Russia's scientists. With the Columbus laboratory ESA's position has been ATV strongly enforced as an equal partner in such cooperation.

Other major elements of the ESA- Russia cooperation in the Human spaceflight area are also related to the ISS:

-         ATV as one of the cornerstones of Europe's contribution to the ISS is being docked to the Russian ISS segment during each of the ATV flights and is therefore equipped with Russian docking and refueling systems. Most intensive work has been ongoing for the last 5-7 years on the integration of the ATV into the Russian ISS Segment, ensuring full compatibility of the ATV systems (mainly rendezvous, docking, attitude control and refueling) with the Russian ISS Segment. The first ATV mission was successfully launched from Kourou on March 9 2008 and ATV-1 was successfully docked to the Russian ISS Segment.

-         ESA provided the central data management system (DMS-R) for the Russian Service Module which has been performing flawlessly since 2000.

-         The European Robotic Arm (ERA) has been designed to operate on the surface of the Russian ISS Segment. Its launch and operations scenario has been changed several times and is still under discussion with Roscosmos.

This successful programmatic line of cooperation has been complemented by another long-term collaboration in low Earth orbit science, namely the Russian microgravity research missions Foton and Bion. Since 1987 ESA has been participating in 3 Bion missions (Bion 8, 9, 10 in 1987, 1989, 1992) and in 9 Foton missions (Foton 7-12 in 1991-99, Foton M1 (launch failure) in 2002, and Foton M2, M3 in 2005, 2007). These missions represented a unique opportunity for low cost access to low Earth orbit science and served quite a large number of European scientists. The cooperation in this area will be probably continued on a Bion-M mission in 2012.

 

 

3. Space science and exploration

Cooperation between ESA and Russia was initially limited to and focused on space science. It was at that time that close ties between European and Russian scientists were established. In the nineties Russian space science activities were greatly suffering from economic difficulties. No Russian planetary mission has been launched for more than 10 years since the failure of the Mars 96 launch. Over the last years the situation has been stabilized with more secure funding and increasing importance attached to the re-establishment of Russia's traditional leading role in space science and exploration.

It is remarkable that the ties between European and Russian scientists remained close also in times of stagnation of Russia's space science domain. Even in the absence of large Russian projects Russian scientists could maintain their positions as Co-Investigators on ESA's Mars Express and Venus Express missions. On ESA's Integral gamma ray astrophysics mission which was launched on a Russian Proton launcher in 2002 and which has just been extended to 2012 the Russian science community is provided with a guaranteed share of 27% of observation time.

Russia will participate in ESA's next planetary mission BepiColombo (launch in 2013) by providing the gamma and neutron spectrometer MGNS. Similar instruments have been flown on the NASA Mars Odyssey and Lunar Reconnaissance missions and will be used on the Phobos Grunt mission.

Future Initiatives

The cooperation between ESA's ExoMars and Russia's Phobos-Grunt missions became an important part of the ESA - Russia collaboration in the field of space science and exploration. This cooperation was initiated in 2006 and took into account two ambitious missions: ESA's first landing and operation of a rover on an alien planet and Russia's comeback to planetary exploration with a very complex Phobos soil sample return mission. However, due to the postponement of the Phobos-Grunt mission to 2011 and due to the reconfiguration of ESA's ExoMars mission the lines of cooperation of the two agencies in the exploration of Mars will have to be redefined. In any case the commitment of ESA regarding the ground station support for Phobos-Grunt remains valid as well as the offer of the Russian side to provide ESA with access to the Phobos-Grunt science data.

Russia is also highly interested in participating in ESA's long term Cosmic Vision (2015-2025) program. Out of the 8 proposals selected for further assessment the following 3 are of particular interest for Russia: Laplace (due to its resemblance to the Fobos Grunt and previous Russian lunar missions), Cross Scale (due to connections to the Russian Interball mission) and XEUS. In all 3 cases Russia offers to provide payload and/or other mission elements which again illustrates Russia's interest in a long term cooperation with ESA.

4. Launchers

The first launch of a Russian Soyuz-ST rocket from ESA's Spaceport at CSG planned for 2010 will mark another strategic milestone in the ESA - Russian cooperation. Soyuz-ST is the last version of the renowned Russian mid-class Soyuz family and will - alongside the Ariane 5 heavy-lift launcher and the Vega small launcher - complete the ESA's range of launchers operated by Arianespace.

This cooperation is complemented by the collaboration in the Future Launchers Preparatory Program (FLPP) which aims at joint research and technology development for future launchers. An Agreement between ESA and Russia on cooperation and partnership in the launcher area, including joint work in the development of advanced technologies for future launch systems was signed in January 2005. Regretfully, due to budgetary reasons on the Russian side and the absence of a technology safeguard agreement the cooperation has not advanced as planned.

On the industrial side Russia is also involved in the ESA Vega small launcher program by manufacturing the Vega Attitude and Vernier Module (AVUM) titanium tanks.

5. Launch services

For a number of its Earth observation, Space science, and Navigation missions ESA has procured launch services by Russian launchers via the joint ventures Starsem and Eurockot:

Previous launches:

-         Cluster II (2000), Mars Express (2003), Venus Express (2005), Cryosat (2005, launch failure), GIOVE-A (2005), MetOp (2006), GIOVE B (2008), GOCE (2009).

Planned launches with Russian launchers (provided by Starsem or Eurockot or with Soyuz from CSG:

-         Earth observation - SMOS (2009), ADM-AEOLUS (TBC), CryoSat II (2010)/

-         Space science - Lisa Pathfinder, Gaia, BepiColombo.

6. Navigation

In addition to launching the important Galileo test satellites GIOVE A and B on Russian launchers ESA and Russia are investigating possibilities of collaborating in the European EGNOS and Russian SDCM projects.

7. Telecommunications

The cooperation between Europe and Russia in Telecommunication is mostly implemented on industry-to-industry level: e.g. European industry has provided communication payload, antenna systems or other elements for Russian telecom missions (SESAT, Express A1-A4 and AM11, AM22, Yamal 100 and 200, KazSat). Joint initiatives for cooperation in telecom using Russian high elliptic satellites (Molniya - type) are raised and discussed.

8. Applied space science and technology

The Large Deployable Antenna (LDA) project was devoted to the qualification of technologies, materials and processes for a 12m space-born aperture system with participation of European and Russian industry. The LDA was successfully qualified on ground end of 2007.

Under an ESA contract TsNIIMash has developed a Russian-European database for innovation technologies dubbed EURITEX. Apart from presenting information on the status of space technologies available in Russia, it also gives European companies the possibility to get in touch with authors of innovations and to introduce their own new technologies.

9. Earth observation

In addition to the launch services for many ESA's Earth observation missions the cooperation in this field also comprises the use of well established ESA CAT-I facility (scientific and non-commercial projects) access to ESA Earth Observation data by over 200 Russian scientists.

ESA and Roscosmos have indicated their interest in investigating new Earth Observation data exchange initiatives and in spring 2009 and agreement about the exchange of Earth Observation data has been signed between the two agencies.

10. Conclusions

The signature of the ESA-Russia Partnership Agreement in 2003 has set a major milestone in the bilateral relations and created grounds and wider opportunities for closer long-term cooperation at industrial and institutional levels in many selected areas.

The current spectrum of cooperation covers practically all areas of space activities; new prospects of cooperation have been identified and are being explored.

Russia is in the process of recovering from the economic and political deadlock of the last decade demonstrating a strong political will to regain its position in space.

Russia is truly open for expanded cooperation and strategic partnership rating Europe as its privileged partner.