April 14, 2024 (EIRNS)—The April 12 meeting of President Vladimir Putin and President Aleksandr Lukashenko with the Russian and Belarus cosmonauts clearly indicated that Belarus will be brought in a major way into the plans of Russia to build its own space station by 2028. Belarus, which doesn’t have an independent space industry or capability, does have important technological capabilities that would contribute to a renewed Russian space effort.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian space program was kept alive largely with the cooperation of the United States in the work on the ISS. With the withdrawal of the U.S. from closer collaboration in space, Russia is now again on its own as it was during the Soviet period. This has not always been an easy transition, with more than one “glitch,” but the successful launch of an Angara-5 rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome means that they have the capability they need for construction of a space station. Angara-5, which was over budget and very costly, was the first new rocket developed by Russia in the post-Soviet era.
