Russian space expert: Russia has nothing to contribute to Lunar Orbital Platform project
The international Lunar Orbital Platform–Gateway (LOP-G) is effectively the US’s project, and its partners, including Russia, cannot offer the US any unique technologies, member-correspondent Andrei Ionin from the Russian Cosmonautics Academy told RIA Novosti.
“After the ISS, the partner countries, including Russia, will have virtually nothing to offer the US when it comes to space – they now have everything we used to have, and enough of their own financial resources,” the expert said.
In his opinion, “some contract work will be ordered from Russia: the Americans are very pragmatic, and it’s important to them that the other countries make their own financial investment”, but the LOP-G, “even if it is declared international, will be the US’s project, and all the rest of the countries will play a secondary role”.
In April, one of the news agency’s sources reported that the US and partners (primarily the EU, Japan and Canada) insist that Russia use American technical standards when it constructs the LOP-G’s airlock module. The source also said that the western countries would like to exclude Russia from the project, “because we usually lag behind in all the technological cycles of space equipment production”.
Talks on the creation of the lunar station began in 2013. In September 2017, Russia and the US signed an agreement on the intention to create the LOP-Gateway. The platform’s construction is planned for 2022, and the Russian airlock module is scheduled to be added to it in 2024.
In April 2018, Russia admitted that it had fallen behind the US in rocket engine technology, and that it was unable to build satellites independently.
In November 2017, Scott Pace, Executive Secretary of the National Space Council described the strategy currently being used by the US to maintain its dominance in space. “Currently the measure of dominance is how many people want to work with you, how many people want to be part of your team, isn’t it?” he said at the time.