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The Soviet Union established the Baikonur Cosmodrome in 1955 to serve as an intercontinental ballistic missile control site. A few years later, it became the world’s first port with the launch of the historic Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1 missions. The sprawling cosmodrome is a pillar of the Soviet area program.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia leased the spaceport to the government of Kazakhstan and recently has an agreement to use the facility until 2050. Russia will pay annual rental rates of about $100 million. Neither country is satisfied with the relationship; the Kazakh government feels undercompensated, and the Russian government would like it to be in its own country, which is why in recent years it has built a new launch site for the maximum of its rockets in Russia’s Far East, in Vostochny.
However, despite some concern, the two governments have been working together on long-term area projects. For example, Russia’s leading area company, Roscosmos, has developed a new medium-lift rocket that it plans to launch from Baikonur. This is the Soyuz-5, a three-stage rocket powered by RD-171 engines that will burn kerosene. Russia is counting on this vehicle to upgrade its aging Proton-M rocket and be more competitive with advertising rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon nine booster.
Russia plans to launch the Soyuz-5 rocket from the “Baiterek” launch pad in Baikonur and intends to begin initial structural paintings in 2022. But those plans now face great uncertainty.
Earlier this month, a Kazakh news site, KZ24, reported that the Republic of Kazakhstan had seized the assets of TsENKI, the Center for the Use of Earth Space Infrastructure, in Kazakhstan. This company, a subsidiary of Roscosmos, is guilty of the release of the Russian company’s area flooring pads and appliances. According to the report, which was translated for Ars via Rob Mitchell, TsENKI has no right to recall products or fabrics from Kazakhstan.
“The ban on the use of resources and the conduct of monetary operations, as well as the instability of trading positions as a whole, are slowing down the direction of precedence of the paintings at Baikonur, i. e. the structure of a new release platform for the Soyuz-5 Booster,” the report said.
Russia has already spent nearly a billion dollars on the progression of the new Soyuz-5 rocket and plans for its launch site and floor services. When Ars wrote about the rocket’s progression in 2017, it was scheduled to debut in 2021. Now, it is unlikely to debut until at least 2024, and given the existing dispute with Kazakhstan, it will most likely be delayed much longer in the future.
There are attractive and confusing policies at play between the two countries. In theory, Kazakhstan has been a sovereign country since 1991, but for the past three decades it has maintained close ties with Russia and is situated in the Russian political sphere.
However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine turned out to have replaced the calculation of this relationship. Namely, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sees Russia’s fear of Ukraine as a window of opportunity to assert greater autonomy for Kazakhstan.
Russia, for its part, has backed down in search of greater autonomy for Kazakhstan. The weakening of ties with the giant southern country may lead to a further collapse of the Russian Federation. At times, the rhetoric has heated up. For example, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Kazakhstan an “artificial state” and, on Russian social media VKontakte, accused the neighboring country of making genocide plans opposed to ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan.
It turns out to be smart policy for Kazakh officials to resist such bluster. The dispute over TsENKI’s assets in Kazakhstan was spearheaded by Kazakhstan’s Communications Minister Bagdat Musin, who sees a political price in announcing Russia’s independence. Musin said his government had to capture the assets, partly because of a lack of communication with Roscosmos leader Yuri Borisov.
Borisov, who prefers to keep a low profile, and at least in his public relations with NASA has followed an apolitical stance, has not commented on the dispute. Roscosmos also said nothing about its Telegram channel, which now acts as its main channel. Tool to raise awareness among citizens.
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