Roscosmos is in touch with NASA, ESA despite Europe's 'incessant hysteria': Dmitry Rogozin

Russian space agency Roscosmos has maintained contacts with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) despite the brewing tensions owing to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. This statement was made by Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin who cited professionalism for the sake of the International Space Station (ISS) and emphasised the implementation of Roscosmos’ exchange programmes with NASA. 

"We maintain contacts with NASA. They are obviously of professional nature (which is) necessary for ensuring safe use of the ISS. And, of course, exchange programmes are also being implemented", Rogozin told Russian media house TASS. He, however, admitted that relations with ESA are not quite as good and blamed Europe’s "incessant hysteria" for this. "It’s not our fault, it is due to incessant hysteria by certain ESA founding nations. But we maintain contacts with the ESA itself".

Notably, Roscosmos' ties have deteriorated with its international partners after Western nations, along with Japan and Australia imposed heavy economic sanctions on Russia for attacking Ukraine. As a result, the conflict ended up spilling into outer space as Rogozin announced earlier this year that Roscosmos will exit the ISS after 2024 unless the sanctions are lifted. 

Will Roscosmos and ESA come together again?

Last week, Rogozin revealed that Roscosmos has resumed talks with ESA regarding the joint ExoMars mission that was suspended by the latter as a protest over the Russian invasion. The mission, involving a European rover and a Russian lander, was scheduled for launch in September this year, but Roscosmos is now planning to conduct the launch on its own. In a recent interview, the chief had said that the launch would be carried out in 2024 using the Angara-A5 carrier rocket from the Vostochny space center.

Roscosmos, however, expects a reply from ESA about the fate of the mission by late June. On the other hand, countries such as Japan are still reluctant to work with Russia. According to TASS, Japan's Minister for Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi announced at a news conference on Tuesday said that Tokyo is considering reducing cooperation with Moscow in science and technology. He even suggested other G7 countries- the UK, Italy, Canada, France, the US, and Germany- follow the same course.