Russia’s Space Program Reels After Putin’s Ukraine Invasion
Roscosmos is courting developing countries as partners cut ties because of the war.
A rocket rolls out to launch from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, October 2022.
Photographer: Sergei Savostyanov/TASS/Zuma Press
The Soviet Union was the first country to launch a satellite and first to reach the moon (with the uncrewed Luna 2, in 1959), and the first person to orbit Earth was a Russian, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. But the Soviets lost the moon race when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface in 1969, and no cosmonauts have ever made it there. Although the Soviets landed a few more uncrewed lunar missions, the last one was in 1976, the same year NASA marked the US bicentennial with a mission to Mars.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is now trying to recapture the glory of the Soviet-era space program. Last year, shortly after his troops rolled into Ukraine, Putin toured the remote Vostochny Cosmodrome near the Chinese border and declared that the uncrewed Luna-25 mission, which has been in the works for more than a decade, “must be complete” in 2022. That didn’t happen, and the liftoff is now scheduled for Aug. 11.