Friday, September 05, 2014

Idle Speculation: The Nauka Module Will be the Basis for a Russian Solo Space Station or Sino-Russian Space Station

The current situation in Ukraine made me wonder what will happen on numerous fronts. The US and Russian are becoming enemies again. Our operations in Afghanistan are about to become untenable: we will lose the supply lines through Russia and the ones through Pakistan are going to probably go away too. I have personal reasons too (3 are out, btw). However, in space...the space station, we are very, very dependent on the Russians. That will likely go away, too.

Putin's team ha already said they will not be supporting the ISS past 2020. The US and Europe DOES plan to do so. There are a couple modules which are built or being built by the Russians which have not as yet flown. One of them is the Nauka module. Its launch has been postponed to at least 2015, if not 2017. It will have its own propulsion (which is the source of the problems now, but can be fixed).  The Nauka module is based off of Zvezda, which provides a lot of the boost capability for the ISS.

 Then add in the Oka-T-MKS module, the node module and something like a Rassvet or two, you are well on your way.  You can either invite the Chinese or others (Indians?) or go it alone.  Given the political situation and given the capability... I am not totally out there.  OPSEK was an earlier concept which may or may not happen.

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