Director of Roscosmos Threatens to Deorbit the ISS over USA or Europe | Hacker News Reader

Director of Roscosmos Threatens to Deorbit the ISS over USA or Europe

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21 pointsenraged_camel12 comments

His cosmonauts would not carry out this order. Not only have they built years of close friendship with their Western colleagues during training, but current and former members of the cosmonaut corps have feuded with Rogozin publicly and privately. He does not have their respect and they will not destroy their agency’s greatest pride for him.

Rogozin is a war criminal and a clownish one at that. He is the former defense minister and deputy PM from the Crimea annexation days, and was then demoted to Roscosmos for his buffoonish incompetence, which has only continued there. It is genuinely sad to see this proud organization, once humanity’s vanguard in space, sink to its current state.

Well first of all this wouldn't be the cosmonauts' job to begin with. They're not in control of the GNC -- the mission control is.

In practice their acquiescence would be required—if nothing else he would need them to agree to abandon the station.

For anyone looking for translations[1] of the original tweets[2] by the (blue-tick, verified) director:

"The garbage that your talented businessmen have put into low-Earth orbit is produced exclusively by the engines of the Russian Progress MS cargo ships. If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent from orbit and falling to the territory of the United States or..."

(next tweet)

"Europe? There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure on India and China. Do you want to threaten them with this prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all risks are yours. Are you ready for them? Gentlemen, when you plan sanctions, check those who generate them for illness"

NB: I attempted to translate the source by-URL using Google Translate[3], but as of 2022-02-24 22:47 UTC that didn't work.

NB: Attempting to use archive.org to retain a copy of the Yandex translation also appeared not to work (a response was saved[4] but it is a message to say that the request was blocked)

[1] - https://translate.yandex.com/translate?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwi...

[2] - https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1496934215333695488

[3] - https://twitter-com.translate.goog/Rogozin/status/1496934215...

[4] - https://web.archive.org/web/20220224224402/https://translate...

I'm far from worried, but I wonder to what degree this can be controlled? My impression was that deorbiting a satellite was a messy affair, and the impact point can't be predicted or controlled within an error of hundreds of miles.

A few hundred miles is plenty accurate to hit a large country.

It would't be the first time... ISS spun out of control before and the Russian jets couldn't be started because the Russian control centre was out for the weekend.

It looks like the original thread[0] from the director is in direct response to Biden's announced sanctions on Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion. A translated version[1] seems to convey this as a set of grievances against US policies over the prior years, rather than directly make a threat of deorbiting the ISS.

[0]: https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1496933548372209669

[1]: https://threadreaderapp-com.translate.goog/thread/1496933548...

Yeah, it looks more in line with the recent/current discussions on how the ISS' end-of-life should be handled than a threat to make it fall, he seems upset by the recent decisions because it would break cooperation, and cooperation is indeed needed for the ISS at any time.

> or Europe

As long as it falls onto Kremlin, I'm OK with that.

He seems to say later in the thread that the trajectory of the ISS doesn't go over Russia, but could also fall on India or China (I don't have a way to verify this claim)

> the trajectory of the ISS doesn't go over Russia

That is definitely a false statement, but admittedly my wish for the ISS to fall on top of Kremlin is unlikely to be granted given ISS' 51.6° orbital inclination and Moscow's 55.75° latitude.

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