U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

April 1995

OTA-ISS-618

GPO stock #052-003-01410-6
Photo Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Recommended Citation: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S.-Russian

Cooperation in Space, OTA-ISS-618 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing

Office, April 1995).
iii

oreword

he recent broad political rapprochement between the United States and

the nations of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) has transformed the environment for cooperation on space projects, and led to cooperative

programs in space with Russia and other FSU states that would have

been unimaginable just a few years ago. Chief among these are the high-profile

human spaceflight cooperative activities involving the Space Shuttle-Space

Station Mir dockings and the International Space Station.

This report surveys the potential benefits and drawbacks of expanded cooperation with Russia and other nations of the FSU in space activities, and examines the impacts of closer cooperation on U.S. industry and U.S. national

security concerns. Such cooperation has begun to yield scientific, technological, political, and economic benefits to the United States. However, the political and economic risks of cooperating with the Russians are higher than with

the United States’ traditional partners in space. Cooperation in robotic space

science and earth remote sensing is proceeding well, within the stringent limits

of current Russian (and U.S.) space budgets. Including Russia in the International Space Station program provides technical and political benefits to the

space station partners, but placing the Russian contribution in the critical path

to completion also poses programmatic and political risks.

The report notes that much of the motivation for the expansion of cooperation with Russia lies beyond programmatic considerations. In particular, it

points out that continued cooperation, including large payments for Russian

space goods and services, may help stabilize Russia’s economy and provide

incentive for some of Russia’s technological elite to stay in Russia and contribute to peaceful activities in space. Lack of opportunities at home might otherwise cause them to seek employment abroad where their skills might contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Finally, the report

assesses the pros and cons of expanded commercial ties, their impact on the

U.S. space industrial base, and on aerospace employment.

In undertaking this effort, OTA sought the contributions of a wide spectrum

of knowledgeable individuals and organizations. Some provided information;

others reviewed drafts. OTA gratefully acknowledges their contributions of

time and intellectual effort.

ROGER C. HERDMAN

Director
iv

orkshop

Issues in U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

November 9, 1994

Kenneth S. Pedersen

Chairman

Research Professor of

International Affairs

Georgetown University

Alain Dupas

Advisor to the President

CNES

Lewis R. Franklin

International Security Consultant

Louis Friedman

Executive Director

The Planetary Society

James W. Head, III

James Manning Professor

Brown University

Carolyn L. Huntoon

Director

NASA Johnson Space Center

Wesley Huntress

Associate Administrator for Space

Science

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Nicholas L. Johnson

Principal Scientist

Kaman Science Corporation

Charles F. Kennel

Associate Administrator

Mission to Planet Earth

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

E. William Land, Jr.

Principal

ANSER

Grant Lichtman

Director

WorldMap International, Ltd.

Charles H. Lloyd

President

LKE International

John Logsdon

Director

Space Policy Institute

George Washington University

Jeffrey Manber

Managing Director

American Operations

NPO Energia Ltd.

Marcia Smith

Specialist in Aerospace Policy

Library of Congress

Judyth Twigg

Instructor

Virginia Commonwealth

University

Note: OTA appreciates and is grateful for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by the workshop participants. The

participants do not, however, necessarily approve, disapprove, or endorse this report. OTA assumes full responsibility for the report

and the accuracy of its contents.
v

roject Staff

Peter Blair

Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials and

International Security Division

Alan Shaw

Director

International Security and Space

Program

Ray Williamson

Project Director

Peter Smith1

Mark Suskin

CONTRACTORS

Cynthia Allen

Madeline Gross

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Jacqueline R. Boykin

Don Gallagher

N. Ellis Lewis

________________

1On detail from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
vi

cknowledgments

This report has benefited from the advice of many individuals. In addition to members of the

workshop, the Office of Technology Assessment especially would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance and support. The views expressed in this paper, however, are the sole responsibility of OTA.

Paul Bowersox

Department of Political Science

University of Colorado

Kent Bress

Space Flight Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Elizabeth Carter

International Relations Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Leslie Charles

Mission to Planet Earth Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Lynn F. H. Cline

Space Flight Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Marc Constantine

Aerojet Corporation

Charles T. Force

Office of Space Communications

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Joseph P. Loftus

Johnson Space Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Patricia Maliga

Space Flight Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

J. Donald Miller

International Relations Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

P. Diane Rausch

Space Flight Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Lisa Shaffer

Mission to Planet Earth Division

Office of External Relations

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

The project staff would also like to

thank the following OTA staff for

their review of the drafts of this

report.

Richard Brody

Anthony Fainberg

S. Yousef Hashimi

Tom Karas
vii

Executive Summary 1

Foreign Policy Benefits and Risks 2

Other Benefits and Risks 2

Commercial Cooperation 3

Russia, Third Parties, and the United States 3

Domestic Economic Impact 3

1 Introduction and Findings 5

Introduction 5

Findings 7

2 History and Current Status of the Russian

Space Program 25

The Soviet Space Program 25

The Russian Space Program 27

3 The Cooperative Experience to Date 41

Public Sector 41

Private Sector 56

Toward Normalization 60

4 Other Countries’ Space Cooperation with

Russia 61

Other Countries’ Experience 61

Effects of U.S.-Russian Pacts on Other U.S.

Partnerships 64

5 Opportunities for and Impediments to

Expanded Cooperation 67

Potential for Expanded Cooperation 67

Risks and Risk Management 71

The Role of Government 75

ontents
viii

6 Domestic Impact and Proliferation

Concerns 79

Introduction 79

Domestic Impact 80

Proliferation Concerns 82

APPENDICES

A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R.

Space Agreements 85

B Public Sector U.S.-Russian Cooperative

Projects 103

C Private Sector U.S.-Russian Cooperative

Projects 115

D Space Cooperation with the Soviet Union

(Russia): A French Point of View 120

INDEX 125
xecutive

Summary

he end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union,

and the changing world order have provided new opportunities and new incentives for the United States and other

countries to cooperate with Russia in space science, space

applications, and human spaceflight. Although U.S. attempts to

cooperate on space activities with the Soviet Union began more

than 30 years ago, intense political and military competition between the two countries severely limited the scope and duration of

such activities. Today, the United States government is actively

pursuing cooperation with Russia on a wide range of space activities, including the International Space Station. In addition, U.S.

aerospace firms have entered into joint ventures, licensing agreements, and cooperative technical agreements with a variety of

newly organized Russian counterparts.

The emergence of Russia as a major cooperative partner for the

United States and other spacefaring nations offers the potential

for a significant increase in the world’s collective space capabilities. Expanding U.S.-Russian cooperation in space since 1991

has begun to return scientific, technological, political, and economic benefits to the United States. Yet, Russia is experiencing

severe economic hardship and its space program has undergone

major structural changes. The future success of U.S.-Russian

cooperative projects in space will depend on:

 successful management of complex, large-scale bilateral and

multilateral cooperative projects;

 progress in stabilizing Russia’s political and economic institutions;

 preservation of the viability of Russian space enterprises;

 flexibility in managing cultural and institutional differences; | 1
2 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

 continued Russian adherence to missiletechnology-proliferation controls; and

 additional progress in liberalizing U.S. and

Russian laws and regulations in export control,

customs, and finance.

FOREIGN POLICY BENEFITS AND RISKS

Russia’s technical contributions to the International Space Station offer a substantial increase in

planned space station capabilities. Just as important to the United States are the foreign policy

gains from this and other human spaceflight projects, such as the Shuttle-Mir dockings. U.S. officials expect cooperative activities to help promote

economic and political stability in Russia. For example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) purchase of nearly $650

million in goods and services from Russia during

fiscal years 1994-97, by far the largest transfer of

U.S. public funds to the Russian government and

private organizations, is an important signal of

U.S. support for Russia’s transition to a market

economy. These purchases should help preserve

employment for Russian engineers and technicians in at least some of Russia’s major space-industrial centers, thereby inhibiting proliferation

through “brain drain” and helping to sustain Russian adherence to the Missile Technology Control

Regime. Moreover, NASA’s purchases improve

the chances that Russia will be able to meet its obligations to the space station project, thereby enhancing prospects for success.

Nevertheless, such purchases entail some political risk in the United States, as well as the risk to

the space station if the Russian government and

enterprises are not able to perform. Some U.S. observers question the wisdom of supporting any

part of the Russian aerospace industry, which provided much of the technological substance for the

Soviet threat to the United States; others believe

that U.S. officials have made adequate provision

to ensure that U.S. funds remain in the civil space

sector.

OTHER BENEFITS AND RISKS

NASA is exploring cooperative space research

and development with Russia in virtually every

programmatic area. Aside from the space station,

activities include flights of instruments on each

other’s spacecraft and joint missions using Russian launch capabilities with U.S.-built spacecraft. Public sector cooperation in space science

and Earth observations is developing well for the

most part. The political, technical, and administrative risks involved are somewhat higher than

they are in NASA’s traditional cooperative relationships, but—except for the space station—

Russian contributions are not in the “critical path”

to completion of key projects; program managers

understand the risks involved and have made contingency plans to minimize long-term risks.

Cooperation on projects involving human

spaceflight involves both potentially greater programmatic benefits and higher risks than it does in

space science and applications. The United States

stands to gain new experience in long-duration

spaceflight and a better understanding of Russia’s

technology and methods. On the other hand, the

United States risks possible project failure if Russia proves unable to perform as promised.

Placing the Russian contribution in the critical

path to completion of the space station poses unprecedented programmatic and political risks.

The Russian elements must be delivered on time

and within budget; failure to do so could cause serious difficulties, both programmatically and in

NASA’s relations with its other partners and with

Congress. Knowledgeable observers express concern about the stability and staying power of the

Russian aerospace sector, about the Russian track

record in delivering new spacecraft, and about the

condition of the Baikonur launch complex (used

to launch Proton and Soyuz vehicles). On another

level, observers worry that political and/or military events within Russia or between Russia and

other countries could cause either party to seek to

amend the space station program or withdraw

from it.
Executive Summary | 3

Given the significance of the Russian contribution to the space station, the U.S. ability to make

up for delays or failure to deliver is severely limited by available U.S. resources. However, participants in current cooperative ventures suggest

some other precautions that could be taken, both

in the space station project and in space robotic

cooperation:

 Seek better understanding of the larger political

and economic forces that could affect Russian

ability to deliver on commitments, perhaps

through further systematic analysis of Russian

aerospace industry developments.

 Maximize open and frank communication. To

avoid as many technical and managerial surprises as possible, seek (and be willing to allow) a high degree of communication and

interpenetration between the U.S. and Russian

programs.

 Be prepared for delays and reverses.

 Be aware of and manage cultural differences effectively.

COMMERCIAL COOPERATION

Because of the potential for diverting civilian

space technologies to enhance Soviet military

capabilities, during the Cold War, the federal government effectively precluded U.S. aerospace

firms from entering into cooperative business

agreements with Russian entities. Now, most

large U.S. aerospace companies are pursuing

some form of joint venture or partnership with

Russian concerns, especially in launch services

and propulsion technologies. Although several of

these emerging commercial partnerships show

promise, and some could result in large revenues,

none of them yet appear to be profitable, and it is

too early to tell how successful they will be. Here,

too, the risks are larger than they are in cooperative ventures with Japanese and Western aerospace firms because of unstable Russian political,

economic, and legal conditions and potential linkage to U.S.-Russian political relations. The U.S.

government could assist U.S. industry by further

liberalizing U.S. export-control laws and regulations.

RUSSIA, THIRD PARTIES,

AND THE UNITED STATES

The French experience in cooperating with the Soviet Union and Russia since 1966 largely parallels

and confirms that of the United States. The European Space Agency has budgeted over $320 million for space cooperation with Russia, largely for

European-built hardware that will be installed in

the Russian portion of the International Space Station.

The U.S. decision to bring Russia into the space

station partnership initially caused considerable

strain in relations with the existing partners, already frayed by years of U.S. design changes and

cost increases and aggravated by a general cooling

of public enthusiasm for human spaceflight. Challenging negotiations remain to complete the realignment of the agreements covering the station’s

construction and utilization, but the working relationships now appear to be developing more

smoothly.

DOMESTIC ECONOMIC IMPACT

Experts disagree over the nature and extent of the

effect that expanded cooperation with Russia will

have on the U.S. aerospace industry, and particularly on the retention of U.S. jobs. Some industry

officials have expressed concern that U.S. aerospace employment could be lost and the technological base adversely affected by use of Russian

technology in the U.S. space program. Others

have argued that skillful incorporation of Russian

technologies into U.S. projects could save taxpayer dollars in publicly funded programs such as the

space station and could boost U.S. international

competitiveness in commercial programs. Both

could happen and have to be weighed against each

other.

Russian launch vehicles and related systems

have the most obvious potential for U.S. commercial use, but using them could adversely affect the

U.S. launch industry. This industry is the subject

of upcoming OTA reports.
Introduction

and

Findings

INTRODUCTION

he U.S. civilian space program began in large part as a

competitive response to the space accomplishments of the

Soviet Union. For the first three decades, at least, competitive impulses played a major role in the direction of U.S.

space activities. Cooperation with the Soviet Union was highly

limited, with the most important projects being undertaken in an

attempt to open lines of political communication between the two

superpowers.1 The recent collapse of the Soviet Union and the

end of the Cold War have brought dramatic changes to the civilian

space programs of both the United States and the Former Soviet

Union (FSU). Once implacable adversaries who used their space

programs to demonstrate scientific and technical prowess, the

United States and the countries of the FSU (figure 1-1) are now

seeking to develop a variety of political, economic, and other ties

to replace their Cold War competition.

U.S.-Russian cooperation on the International Space Station,

begun in 1993, is the largest and most visible sign of the new relationship in space activities. However, the United States and Russia have embarked on a host of other cooperative space projects

involving both government and industry. These ventures range

from administratively simple projects between individual scientists to complicated commercial and intergovernmental transactions. Such activities also involve a wide range of investments,

from a few thousand to hundreds of millions of dollars. Although

1 See, e.g., U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space, OTA-TM-STI-27 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July

1985).

| 5
6 I U.S-=RussianCooperation in Space
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 17

the United States’ most extensive partnerships

with FSU countries are with the Russian government and Russian commercial entities, the United

States and U.S. companies are exploring additional cooperative ventures with other FSU countries.

This rapid expansion of cooperative activity is

taking place in the context of serious economic decline, political instability, and social disruption in

Russia and the other countries of the FSU. As a result, both the potential benefits and the risks involved are considerably greater than they are in

U.S. space cooperation with Europe, Japan, and

other partners. This is particularly the case for the

International Space Station program. By engaging the Russians as partners and purchasing related Russian space hardware and services, the

United States hopes to benefit not merely from

Russian technical capabilities, but from improved

Russian political and economic stability and continued adherence to nonproliferation goals. At the

same time, Russian failure to deliver as promised,

for whatever reason, could risk the future of the

program itself.

This report surveys issues related to U.S.-Russian efforts—governmental and commercial-to

cooperate in civil space activities.2 It was requested by the House Committee on Science,

which asked the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) to “undertake an initial survey of issues related to U.S.-Russian cooperation in space

activities.” 3 The committee also asked OTA to extend its analysis to other republics of the FSU,

where applicable.

To gather data for this report, OTA convened a

workshop of experts with experience in U.S.-Russian cooperative efforts in space science, space applications, space-launch services, and human

spaceflight. 4 The workshop gave OTA the opportunity to explore the lessons learned in previous or

ongoing U.S.-Russian cooperative programs and

to discuss the implications for future cooperative

efforts.

Chapter 1 presents OTA’s major findings regarding U.S.-Russian cooperation. Chapter 2

summarizes the status and organization of the

Russian space program and shows how it relates

to programs of other FSU countries. The history

and current state of U.S.-Russian cooperation are

explored in chapter 3. Chapter 4 summarizes lessons learned from others who have developed major space ties with Russia and its predecessor, as

well as past and potential interactions among

Russia’s partners and the United States. Chapter 5

examines risk management, the role of governments, and opportunities for and impediments to

establishing or expanding cooperative relationships. Finally, chapter 6 examines the impacts of

closer cooperation on U.S. industrial and national

security concerns.

FINDINGS

The dramatic expansion of U. S.-Russian cooperation in space since 1991 has begun to return scientific, technological, political, and economic

benefits to the United States. Further cooperative gains

will depend on:

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successful management of extraordinarily

complex, large-scale bilateral and multilateral

cooperative projects;

progress in stabilizing Russia’s political and

economic institutions;

preservation of the viability of Russian space

enterprises;

successful management of cultural and institutional differences;

continued Russian adherence to missiletechnology-proliferation controls; and

2 This report deals only with civil space cooperation and does not address cooperative activities of the military or of the Department of

Defense.

3 George E. Brown, Jr., and Robert S. Walker, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, letter to Roger Herdman, Director

of OTA, Aug. 29, 1994.

4 Held Nov. 9, 1994, in Washington, DC.
8 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

■

■

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■

Reducing costs and sharing burdens. Many of the agencies involved in space share common

goals and have developed overlapping programs. Facing budget constraints, these agencies are

Iooking for ways to coordinate their programs to eliminate unnecessary duplication and to share the

cost burden of projects they might otherwise do on their own.

Broadening sources of know-how and expertise. Scientists and engineers from other countries

may possess technology or know-how that would improve the chance of project success.

Increasing effectiveness. The elimination of unnecessary duplication can also free up resources

and allow individual agencies to match their resources more effectively with their plans This reallocation of resources can eliminate gaps that would occur if agency programs were not coordinated. International discussions can be valuable even if they merely help to identify such gaps, but they can

be particularly useful if they lead to a division of labor that reduces those gaps.

Aggregating resources for large projects. International cooperation can also provide the means to

pay for new programs and projects that individual agencies cannot afford on their own. This has been

the case in Europe, where the formation of the European Space Agency has allowed European countries to pursue much more ambitious and coherent programs than any of them could have accomplished alone.

Promoting foreign policy objectives. Cooperation in space also serves important foreign policy objectives, as exemplified by the International Space Station program. The agreements on space cooperation reached in 1993 and 1994 by Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin have also led to significant cooperate activities in space science and Earth observations

SOURCE Off Ice of Technology Assessment, 1995

additional progress in liberalizing U.S. and accomplish more in space (box 1-1). The emerRussian laws and regulations in such areas as

export control, customs, and finance.

Most knowledgeable observers conclude that

international cooperation will be essential to the

success of future major space plans. 5 Most large

programs are too ambitious to be undertaken as

unilateral efforts.6 Multilateral projects and extensive coordination among all potential partners

in a particular field are becoming increasingly

common as all major space-faring nations encounter significant budget pressures yet desire to

gence of Russia as a major cooperative partner for

the United States and other space-faring nations

offers the potential for a significant increase in the

world’s collective space capabilities.

U.S.-Russian cooperation in space is taking a

wide variety of forms, ranging from relatively

straightforward company-to-company arrangements to high-profile government-to-government

cooperative agreements. Most large U.S. aerospace companies are pursuing some form of joint

venture or partnership with Russian concerns. The

5 Kenneth Pedersen, “Thoughts on International Cooperation and Interests in the Post-Cold War World,” Space Policy 8(3): 205-220, August 1992; George van Reeth and Kevin Madders, “Reflections on the Quest for International Cooperation,” Space Policy 8(3): 221-232, August 1992; American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Conference on International Cooperation (Kona, HI: AIAA, 1993);

U.S.-CREST, Partners in Space (Arlington, VA: U.S.-CREST, May 1993); John M. Logsdon, “Charting a Course for Cooperation in Space,”

Issues in Science and Technology, 10(1): 65-72, fall 1993.

6 

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, International Collaboration in Large Science Projects (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office), forthcoming, Spring 1995.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings | 9

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) is exploring cooperative space research

and development (R&D) in virtually every area

that interests its scientists and engineers. Intensified cooperation with Russia, either bilaterally or

in a multilateral framework, could yield great

benefit for both countries.

Cooperation between the two countries raises

economic, financial, scientific, foreign policy,

and national security issues. U.S. efforts to include Russian scientists and engineers in cooperative efforts derive in large part from a desire to

help Russia make a successful, stable transition to

democracy, develop a market economy, and reduce military production in favor of civilian

manufacturing. By involving some portion of

Russia’s technical elite in high-technology space

projects, the United States hopes to encourage

highly educated professionals to stay in Russia

and help develop its economy, rather than move to

countries potentially hostile to the United States

and its allies.7 U.S. purchases of space-related

goods and services from Russia also provide

much-needed hard currency for the Russian economy. Cooperation on Earth-observation projects

stems in part from a desire to involve Russia more

deeply in regional and global environmental matters.

The recent broad political rapprochement between the United States and Russia has transformed the environment for cooperation on space

projects. Previously, both governments limited

what could be done, for political reasons and because of the desire to prevent the transfer of strategically useful technical information; conversely,

efforts to ease political tensions occasionally

stimulated the pursuit of cooperative activities

that might not otherwise have been considered of

high scientific or engineering value, such as the

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (see photo on page

10).8 NASA program managers constantly faced

the reality that the political linkage—that is, the

linkage between politics and support for certain

projects—could work to disrupt cooperative undertakings, as events in the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and Poland did at the end of the 1970s and

early 1980s.9 Today, the desire to support economic and political stability in Russia and to provide tangible incentives for positive Russian

behavior in areas such as nonproliferation of

weapons of mass destruction and their delivery

systems encourages cooperation.10 As a result, the

United States has made unprecedented commitments of resources to cooperative projects, including purchases of Russian goods and services, and

has been willing to make Russian hardware and

launch services major components of keystone

NASA projects, particularly the International

Space Station.

Technologically, Russian hardware and other

capabilities have much to offer the space station

and other projects. To learn more about working

together and to gain early long-duration-flight experience, NASA has embarked on a two-year series of engineering and scientific experiments

involving the Mir Space Station and the U.S.

Space Shuttle.11 Nevertheless, more intense

cooperation entails some significant risks and liabilities. Political and economic instabilities with7 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union, OTA-ISS-605 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1994).

8 The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project involved an orbital rendezvous between a U.S. Apollo capsule and a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The project

was planned and carried out during the early 1970s (see ch. 3 for greater detail).

9 Human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the institution of martial law in Poland in 1981

occasioned a sharp cooling in the cooperative relationship.

10 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1993).

11 This arrangement gives the United States access to long-duration-flight opportunities for the first time since the mid-1970s, when the

United States launched and occupied Skylab.
10 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

in Russia constitute the greatest risks to the

pursuit of cooperative activities. After investing

both time and money in cooperative programs, if

Russia failed for any reason to follow through, the

United States could be faced with having to complete such programs on its own, cancel them, or

find new partners. Companies face the risk of losing their investment of time and money if commercial agreements fail. In time, companies also

risk the loss of entire programs or product lines.

Russia has undergone enormous political

changes, having gone from a centralized regime

under the Soviet flag to an emerging democracy in

just a few years. Its newly formed democratic

institutions are still quite fragile.12 Russia is also

attempting to move from a centrally planned

economy to one in which market forces predominate. Such changes have imposed considerable

hardship on Russia’s people. Rapid political and

economic improvements are impeded by the very

human impulse to resist change. To solidify

changes in its political and economic order, Russia must, therefore, build the legal and commercial infrastructure to support and enhance the

changes. Because the political, economic, and administrative nature of Russian private and governmental institutions is changing rapidly, each

cooperative agreement generally requires charting new institutional ground, adding to the uncertainties of cooperating with Russia.

Russians and Americans have strong cultural

differences. Over the nearly 40 years of mutual

isolation in technical matters, the two countries

have also acquired different technical and managerial approaches to the development and application of space technology. Such differences can be

beneficial to both sides because they add new perspectives, but they can also be barriers to increased cooperation. By contrast, the European,

Japanese, and Canadian space communities have

had a close relationship with their U.S. counterpart, making communication and collaboration

much easier than they are between the United

States and Russia. Although cooperation with

Canada, Europe, and Japan has its own set of risks,

cooperation with Russia is currently more difficult. Workshop participants pointed out the importance of maintaining open minds and learning

more about Russian practices in order to reduce

misunderstandings resulting from cultural differences. The uncertainties of cooperating with Russia (box 1-2) suggest that the U.S. government and
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 11

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Technical risks. Despite Russia’s prowess in developing and maintaining a large and capable space

program, it has certain weaknesses, such as difficulty maintaining schedules on new spacecraft and

components, which were evident even before the end of the Cold War. Russia will have to complete

several new systems to fulfill its upcoming cooperative and contractual commitments.

Unstable political institutions. Russian democratic institutions are in a very early stage of development, and successful maturation is far from certain. Legal and political instability is great and appears Iikely to remain so for some time to come.

Russian military actions. The Russian military has undergone substantial change in the past few

years and is much less stable than it was under the U.S.S.R. government. Instability in the Russian

military could make the Western world much more wary about investing in Russia and could even

undermine economic and political stability. For example, the war in Chechnya has drained important

resources from the civilian economy and has raised concerns about human rights abuses.

Economic uncertainty The near collapse of the Russian economy and its impact on the many enterprises essential to Russian space activity could affect Russia’s ability to deliver on international commitments. Russia lacks a common, settled business and procedural framework within which to organize and regulate its new marketplace.

Crime and corruption. The political and legal changes in Russia and lax enforcement have increased the incidence of serious crime and open corruption, thus impeding the development of normal business relationships.

Cultural barriers. U.S. and Russian partners face a high risk of misunderstanding each other’s intentions and of inadvertently creating discord in their relationships.

SOURCE. Office of Technology Assessment, 1995

U.S. companies should proceed cautiously and Although cooperation with Russia in space has

develop clearly defined objectives for cooperative

ventures.

Intergovernmental cooperation with

Russia in space science, Earth observations, and

space applications is developing well for the most part,

although severe Russian budgetary constraints have

put some projects in jeopardy The political, technical,

and administrative risks involved are somewhat higher

than they are in NASA's traditional cooperative relationships, but U.S. program managers understand them

and have planned accordingly

varied widely in intensity, it has a three-decade

history. The United States and the Soviet Union

began sharing data from weather satellites in

1966.13 U.S. and Russian space scientists have

cooperated at some level of interaction since the

late 1960s.

Over the years, the United States has made

some useful gains in space science and Earth observations by cooperating with Russia. For example, data acquired during the Soviet Union’s

Venera Venus landings of the 1970s provided U.S.

13The first experimantal Soviet weather observation sensors were flown in 1964. The sharing of weather-satellite data began two years

later, after the launch of the Soviet Kosmos 122 satellite. (N.L. Johnson, Kaman Sciences Corporation, Colorado Springs, CO, personal communication, Feb. 6, 1995.)
12 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

■

■

■

■

■

Solar system exploration: proposed coordinated or joint missions to Mars, Pluto, and the neighborhood of the Sun; flight of instruments on each other’s spacecraft, including Russia's Mars 96.

Space physics: coordinated observing campaigns to study cosmic rays and the Earth’s solar magnetic environment, using U.S., European, Japanese, and Russian spacecraft and ground facilities,

Space biomedicine, life support, and microgravity: flight experiments on Mir, Spacelab, the Space

Shuttle, and Russian biosatellites to support increased understanding of microgravity phenomena

and factors affecting humans in space,

Earth sciences and environmental modeling; flight of U.S. Earth Observing System instruments on

Russian meteorological satellites; ground-based, aircraft, satellite, and spacecraft measurements of

crustal and atmospheric phenomena and other aspects of the Earth as a system

Astronomy and astrophysics: flight of x-ray and gamma-ray instruments on each other’s spacecraft; data exchanges and coordinated research,

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1995

—

planetary scientists with unique insights into programs with Russia has increased significantly

chemical and physical processes in the Venusian

atmosphere and on its surface. 14

As noted above, throughout the Cold War, the

overall state of the relationship between the

United States and the Soviet Union placed general

limits on the extent of cooperation in space activities. In addition, the risk that U.S. technology

might be used to further Soviet military capabilities also limited the scope and depth of such cooperation from the U.S. side. Furthermore, Soviet

authorities were loath to open their facilities to

westerners or to allow their scientists and engineers to travel outside the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, U.S. officials

viewed scientific cooperation between the United

States and the Soviet Union as helping to provide

important insights into the workings of the closed

Soviet society. Cooperation also exposed Soviet

scientists to Western economic prosperity and

political ideals. Since 1991, the pace of cooperative intergovernmental science and technology

(box 1-3).

Russia operates a fleet of reliable, relatively inexpensive launch vehicles. However, Russian

space and earth sciences instrumentation and

science spacecraft are generally not up to U.S.

standards of sophistication and long-term reliability.

15 Russian strengths lie in theoretical science,

materials, software development, space propulsion, and mechanical engineering. To counter

their technical weaknesses, the Russians have actively sought foreign instruments for their spacecraft. Flying U.S. instruments on some Russian

spacecraft continues to be an attractive way for the

United States to gain additional flight opportunities at minimum cost. For example, from August

1991 until February 1995, a NASA Total Ozone

Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) delivered important data from aboard a Russian Meteor-3 polarorbiting weather spacecraft. NASA has recently

concluded an agreement with the Russian Space

14 James W. Head III, “Scientific Interaction with the Soviet Union: The Brown Geology Experience,” Geological Sciences Newsletter,

May 1988, pp. 1-3.

15 Russian engineers have compensated for less reliable spacecraft design by building operational spacecraft, such as their Meteor weathermonitoring satellites, in series and by launching new ones as needed. Russia’s efficiency in launching payloads to Earth orbit makes this approach feasible.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 113

Agency (RSA) to fly a Stratospheric Aerosol and

Gas Experiment (SAGE) instrument and a TOMS

instrument on Meteor-3M spacecraft in 1998 and

2000, respectively. At the same time, the U.S. participants in these cooperative efforts must be

keenly aware of the risk that Russian agencies or

enterprises may be late or unable to perform because of technical, economic, and/or political difficulties. l6 Well-developed contingency plans

are, therefore, a necessity.

In the past, NASA has almost always arranged

its cooperative projects so that there is no exchange of funds with the other countries or agencies involved. OTA’s workshop participants

believed that under normal circumstances, this

practice was sound because it helps ensure balanced projects and avoids the political difficulties

that could arise from sending funds abroad. Moreover, they agreed that foreign agencies that find a

place in their budgets for their part of cooperative

projects tend to be more fully engaged and committed partners.

Consistent with this approach, the use of Russian launch vehicles for U.S. space science and applications spacecraft is an attractive cooperative

option that may permit some projects that would

not be undertaken otherwise. Normally, such

cooperative agreements should be made on the basis that Russia would supply the launch vehicle in

return for participating in the activity and receiving access to the data returned. Nevertheless, as a

short-term measure, U.S. support of some portion

of the launch costs for an experiment may be appropriate—for example, to ensure the project’s

completion. 1 7

Cooperation in space science and applications

has a lower profile, and a less immediate connection to political matters, than does cooperation in

human spaceflight and thus would be much more

likely to survive a cooling in the political relationships between the United States and Russia.

Nevertheless, the emergence of sharp policy differences between the two countries, particularly in

geographical areas of intense conflict, might make

all cooperative projects harder to carry out.

Because of the high cost, complexity

and public visibility of projects involving human spaceflight, cooperation on such projects promises the potential for both greater benefits and higher risks than it

does in space science and applications. Although Russian technical contributions to the International Space

Station will result in a substantial increase in the station's

planned capabilities, the potential benefit for the United

States in this and other human-space flight projects lies

at least as much in foreign policy as in space activities.

Russia has more operational experience with

long-duration human spaceflight than does the

United States. During the 1970s and early 1980s,

the Soviet space program orbited and operated six

Salyut space stations. In February 1986, the

U.S.S.R. launched the core module for the larger

and more capable Mir Space Station, which is still

16 For example, Russian budgetary constraints have forced the near abandonment of the “Mars Together” concept for linking the Us. and

Russian programs for the exploration of Mars in a series of joint missions.

17 To obtain much-needed technical information about the Russian Meteor-3M spacecraft for determining the feasibility of Joint missions,

the United States has paid Russia about $100,000 for a set of spacecraft-interface design-and-control documents. These arrangements will help

defray Russia’s costs for its part of the Meteor-3 M/SAGE and Meteor-3 M/TOMS projects. The United States will also reportedly pay integration

costs for the 1998 and 2000 flights, which will total around $5 million for both missions.
14 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

●

■

■

■

■

■

❑

The use of Russian launch vehicles for construction and logistics, in addition to Space Shuttle and

other Western vehicles, significantly improves transportation availability.

The space station “Alpha” redesign with Russian participation will be completed 15 months earlier

than the “Alpha” redesign without Russian participation (but two years later than Space Station Freedom’s scheduled completion).

The space station will have 25 percent more usable volume (if the European Columbus module is

reauthorized in October 1995),

When assembly is completed, the station will have 42,5 kilowatts more electrical power than did the

“Alpha” design,

Crew size can be Increased from four to SIX, providing additional crew time for scientific experiments

and maintenance

Portions of all international laboratory facilities will be within the zone of best microgravity conditions

for research,

An orbital inclination of 51.6° means that the space station will overfly a large portion of the Earth’s

surface, thus increasing opportunities for Earth observations.

SOURCES “Addendum to Program Implementation Plan, ” NASA, Nov. 1, 1993, Marcia S. Smith, “Space Stations, ” Congressional

Research Service Issue Brief 93017, Washington, DC, October 1994 (updated periodically), Off Ice of Technology Assessment, 1995

— —

I

m operation under Russian control. 18 Throughout

the program, cosmonauts have extended Russia’s

experience in long-duration spaceflight, up to the

current record of 473 days.

In December 1993, U.S. Vice President Al

Gore and Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin

announced their governments’ agreement to

cooperate on the International Space Station.19

This agreement was a highly visible sign that the

United States was willing to work more closely

with Russia on important science and technology

programs. It was undertaken in large part to underscore the new political relationship between the

two countries, in which the United States and Russia are attempting to work together on technical

and political problems of mutual interest. Also in

December 1993, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and RSA Director General Yuri Koptev signed

a cooperative agreement for joint Space ShuttleMir experiments and a letter contract committing

the United States to a total of $400 million ($100

million per year for four years) for Russian goods

and services related to the Shuttle-Mir program.

The joint activities planned under this agreement

should yield critical life sciences data and important insights into working with the Russians. Russia will make a substantial addition to the

International Space Station by contributing several major components; the United States is purchasing other components (box 1-4). The United

States will spend nearly $650 million in Russia

over four years for the Shuttle-Mir program and

other Russian space goods and services.

As noted earlier, by including the Russians in

high-profile projects in space, U.S. officials hope

to reduce possible proliferation of Russian military technology and assist the stabilization of

Russian economic and political institutions. Successful execution of the space station agreement

would also be an important symbol of the chang18 Indeed, the two cosmonauts aboard Mir during the 1991 attempted coup were launched as citizens of the U.S.S.R. and returned to Earth

as citizens of Russia.

19 Al Gore and Viktor Chernomyrdin, Joint Statement, Dec. 16, 1993.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 115

ing world order—a demonstration both of the

ability of two former superpower adversaries to

substitute cooperation for competition and of

Russian integration into a major Western cooperative venture.

The Clinton Administration’s policy of involving Russia in the International Space Station and

other space projects also stems from a growing

U.S. appreciation of Russian technical capabilities in developing and maintaining the support

structure for humans in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The series of engineering experiments beginning

in 1995 involving Mir and the Space Shuttle will

serve as important precursors to space station

construction.

Involving the Russians in the International

Space Station promises to increase program flexibility and capability. It also reduces the potential

for space station failure resulting from the loss of a

shuttle orbiter.20 Russia has highly capable launch

systems that can assist in building the space station and in supporting its operations and that can

reduce the probability of interruptions in these activities. For example, Russia will contribute SoyUZ-TM spacecraft for crew rotation and rescue (if

needed) during the 1997-2002 period (box 1-5).

However, including the Russians in the space station also increases the managerial complexity of

space station planning, construction, and operations.

How the United States manages the relationship with its other space station partners and Russia will also affect space station success. The 1993

U.S. decision to invite Russia to participate in the

International Space Station was the latest episode

in a series of trials that have strained the partnership since the signing of the initial agreements in

1988. U.S. officials angered other partners by the

unilateral manner in which they invited the Russians to join the project.21 Since then, NASA has

endeavored to repair the damage its actions might

have done to an effective partnership and has taken care to involve fully all partners in space station

decisions. Although working-level cooperative

activities appear to be proceeding well in the new

framework, other events may place added pressure on the space station partnership. In 1994,

Canada decided to reduce its space station participation significantly, and the scale and shape of the

European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) commitment

remains uncertain, pending a ministerial meeting

scheduled for October 1995.

Including Russia in the International

Space Station program provides technical and political

benefits to the space station partners, but placing the

Russian contribution in the critical path to completion

also poses unprecedented programmatic and political

risks.

Russian contributions to the space station involve the development and construction of several

critical elements (box 1-6). To keep space station

construction on schedule and costs down, these

space station elements must be delivered on time

and within budget. Because successful completion of the space station is so important to NASA’s

future, difficulties in meeting space station cost or

schedule goals will especially stress NASA’s relations with Congress and the other partners. Some

analysts, for example, worry that although Russian supplies of space hardware seem adequate

20 As noted in an earlier OTA report, the risk of losing a shuttle orbiter during or after space station construction is Sufficiently high to raise

concerns about the wisdom of using only the Space Shuttle to support the space station. The availability of Russian space-transportation systems

greatly reduces the risk of a failure to complete space station construction. See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Access to

Space: The Future of U.S. Space Transportation Systems, OTA-ISC-415 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 1990), p. 7.

21 According to news reports, U.S. officials initially failed to consult adequately with Canada, the European Space Agency, and Japan concerning the inclusion of Russia in the joint project. See, e.g., “Clinton Orders New Design for Space Station, ’’Aviation Week and Space Technology, Feb. 22, 1993, pp. 20-2 1; James R. Asker, “NASA’s Space Station Takes Friendly Fire,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, Mar. 22,

1993, p. 25; and “Station Partners Blast U.S. Design, “ Aviation Week and Space Technology, May 3, 1993, p. 20.
16 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

The Soyuz series of crew ferries began with the Soyuz (1967-81), moved to the Soyuz-T (1979-86),

and is represented today by the Soyuz-TM (1986-present). Designed and manufactured by NPO Energia (now RSC Energia), the Soyuz-TM carries a crew of two to three in its 10-cubic-meter habitable

volume, Two 10.6-meter solar arrays provide electrical power during the two- to three-day trip from

Earth to the Mir Space Station and connect to the space station’s electrical system to provide it with an

additional 1.3 kilowatts of electrical power, The Soyuz-TM is just over 7 meters long, has a gross weight

of 7.07 metric tons, and is rated for flight times of up to 180 days while docked with Mir The 20 successful launches of the Soyuz-TM, in addition to the 51 launches of the Soyuz and Soyuz-T, have given

the Russians unparalleled experience in automated and manual docking procedures.1

The SOYUZ-TM Spacecraft

SOURCE. David F. Portree, Mir Hardware Heritage, 1994,

Part of the Russian contribution to the International Space Station will be Soyuz-TMs to serve for

crew return and crew rotation during Phase Two of the space station. The Progress-M, a vehicle designed like the Soyuz-TM but made to carry cargo only, will be used throughout all phases to bring fuel

and supplies to the space station,

1U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard and two Russian cosmonauts, Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennadiy Strekalov, were launched toward Mir aboard a Soyuz-TM on Mar, 15, 1995, On Mar, 16, they docked automatically with Mir. Astronaut Thagard will return to Earth

on the Space Shuttle, which is scheduled to dock with Mir in June 1995.

SOURCE: N.L. Johnson and D.M. Rodvold, Europe and Asia in Space, 1991-1992, DC-TR-219/103-1 (Colorado Springs, CO Kaman

Sciences Corporation, 1993).

today, Russian enterprises might not be able to At least one OTA workshop participant obmaintain an appropriate pace and quality of pro served that Russian space enterprises have funcduction. 22 On the other hand, for certain items, tioned extremely well in building a production

such as launch vehicles and many launch subsys- series of spacecraft but have had difficulties meettems, Russian enterprises have excess capacity, ing schedules with new, untried, and one-of-aand given sufficient funding, may be able to in- kind designs. Others expressed concern about the

crease their production to meet market needs. state of second- and third-tier equipment suppliers

22 Judyth L. Twigg, “The Russian Space Program: What Lies Ahead?” Space Policy 10(1):19-31,1994.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 117

■ Guidance, navigation, and control of the Phase Two station depends on the Functional Cargo Block

(FGB) module, purchased from Khrunichev Enterprise by Lockheed.

■ Rebooting the space station, to prevent premature reentry caused by atmospheric drag, will depend

on a series of Russian Progress-M and Progress-X cargo spacecraft (the latter is an enlarged version

that does not yet exist).

■ Russia will be responsible for crew-return (“lifeboat”) capability in the period before planned space

station completion (1997-2002).

■ Fuel resupply is also a Russian-only function, under current plans.

SOURCE Marcia S Smith, "Space Stations, ” Congressional Research Service Issue Brief 93017, Washington, DC, October 1994

(updated periodically)

to the large enterprises and about whether those launched 13 Proton vehicles from Baikonur,

suppliers could continue to meet planned production schedules.

Other concerns relate to Russia’s space infrastructure. For example, the Baikonur Cosmodrome, or launch facility, in the nation of Kazakhstan is a crucial part of Russia’s contribution

to the space station program; the Proton, Soyuz,

and Zenit launch vehicles are launched from Baikonur. Visitors to the facility in 1994 expressed

concern about its condition and about low morale

among key personnel at the site.23 Further, news

reports about Leninsk, the city created to support

the launch complex, have painted a grim picture of

living conditions.24 However, prospects for the

long-term viability of the Baikonur Cosmodrome

have improved as a result of: 1) the ratification of

the Russia-Kazakhstan agreement on its use and

2) the apparent resolution of internal Russian government differences over funding its operation

and maintenance. Recent visitors from NASA and

Anser Corporation report that the Baikonur facilities are in good repair. In addition, LKE International’s decision to invest in the modification of a

payload processing facility at Baikonur demonstrate that at least one major American-Russian

partnership has confidence in the long-term operation of the Cosmodrome. Finally, in 1994, Russia

which tied the all-time high for the number of Proton launches in a given year.

Of perhaps greatest importance to the relationship between Russia and the United States in the

International Space Station effort is whether political and/or military events within Russia or between Russia and other countries will cause either

the United States or Russia to amend or even cancel their space station agreement. Although few

believe that a resumption of the level of hostility

present during the Cold War is likely in this restructured world, a sharp cooling of the U.S.-Russian political relationship could slow or even

cancel space station activity. On the other hand,

the space station’s high visibility in the overall

political relationship and the Clinton Administration’s strong commitment to the project could

help insulate it from transitory political strains.

Although the emerging commercial

partnerships between the United States and Russia exhibit promise in some space sectors, it is too ear/y to tell

how successful these partnerships will be. Because of

the higher economic and political uncertainties, commercial ventures with Russian companies carry much

higher risk than those with firms in Western Europe or

Japan.

23 Oversight Visit: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Chairman’s Report of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, House of Representatives, 103d Congress, 2d Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1994).

24 "Baykonur-Leninsk Difficulties Evaluated,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS-USR-94-074, July 5, 1995.
18 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

■

■

■

■

■

Propulsion technology Using Russian engines to enhance the performance of existing U.S. launch

vehicles, or for potential use in future systems, such as reusable demonstration vehicles,

Launch services, Using Russian space-launch vehicles for Western satellites,

Launch-vehicle components. Taking advantage of Russian expertise in materials and fabrication to

achieve cost and weight savings and increased reliability.

Telecommunications services. Using Russian communication satellites to provide International

services.

Others. Remotely sensed data; underlying technologies and materials; software and analytical services.

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment 1995

Russian companies have much to offer U.S.

companies, especially in liquid-fuel propulsion,

launch vehicles, and launch services. Incorporation of Russian technologies into U.S. launch vehicles and launch operations could make U.S.

launch services more competitive in the international marketplace than they are today. Russian

launchers such as Proton and Soyuz are highly capable and have a strong record of launch success.

Russia also has significant skills in satellite remote sensing and now markets, through several

Western companies, the highest-resolution remotely sensed data25 that are commercially available. 26 However, Russian skills in the global

marketplace are just developing. The combination

of Russian know-how and U.S. marketing skills

can improve the international competitiveness of

U.S. companies and also help Russian companies

earn much-needed hard currency.

Continued progress in developing these partnerships (box 1-7) will depend in part on the speed

with which Russia converts its large state enterprises into firms driven by market forces. It will

also depend on the development of stable Russian

laws and institutions aimed at reducing the institutional uncertainties and economic risks of such

ventures. Commercial progress will also depend

on developing and maintaining stable and supportive U.S. and Russian governmental policies

toward these industrial partnerships.

As noted above, the Clinton Administration,

with cautious encouragement from Congress, has

pursued policies of greater openness with the

FSU. U.S. agencies could play a significant role in

easing the path of private sector cooperative

agreements with Russia, but interagency conflicts

and continued distrust of Russian motives impede

greater progress. Despite the end of the Cold War,

the dismantlement of the Coordinating Committee on Export Controls (COCOM), and the

realignment of the State Department and Commerce Department’s export-control responsibilities (during which many space items were

removed from the State Department’s U.S. Munitions List), U.S. export-control restrictions continue to increase the time and cost involved in

cooperating with Russian entities in both the public and private sectors.

Although business relationships among U.S.

and Russian firms have generally developed without unduly affecting either side’s relations with

third parties, competition in launch services may

25 However, the highest-resolution Russian remotely sensed data are in photographic form and cannot be provided in a timely manner after

acquisition, which inhibits their use in applications where timeliness or well-calibrated radiances are necessary.

26 WorldMap International, Ltd., markets data from the Russian Resurs-F satellites that have been digitized from photographic originals;

several other companies market photographic images or digital data from second-generation images obtained through Soyuzcarta, a Russian

data-marketing firm.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 119

prove an exception. The U.S. government faces

growing pressure from some U.S. firms and Russia either to liberalize its launch-services agreement with Russia or abandon it altogether. 27 The

latter, in particular, seems likely to provoke a

strong protest from Europe, which favors an upper

limit on launches for Russia.

The political and economic uncertainties in

Russia should prompt U.S. companies to be cautious in pursuing partnerships with newly created

Russian private companies. In addition, the

changing institutional relationships within the

Russian government make navigating Russian

regulatory requirements a challenge to U.S. companies. Russian officials worry about the loss of

economically or militarily significant technologies to the West. For most space technologies, the

Russian military plays an important role in the establishment of fruitful business relationships with

Russian companies. Despite the increasing power

of Russian aerospace corporations to chart their

own destiny, many U.S.-Russian agreements require the consent and/or the active participation of

the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Military

Space Forces. These parties, which may possess

veto power over projects, are often not included in

negotiations at the early stages.

The Russian government has made important strides in reorganizing its civilian space program to allow smoother cooperation with Western

governments and commercial enterprises. Nevertheless, Russian space program faces many challenges

in achieving long-term stability

To change the way space policy is made within

Russia, to separate the civilian space effort from

the military, and to make cooperation with other

governments and with non-Russian corporations

easier, the Russian government created the Russian Space Agency in February 1992. Made up of

a relatively tiny cadre of about 200 people who

were part of the old Ministry of General Machine

Building that once controlled all aspects of the

space program, RSA reports directly to the government of Russia. It is responsible for drafting

space policy and for implementing the policy once

it has been ratified by the government. Funding

for RSA comes through several ministries, including the Ministry of Science. RSA is responsible

for space program management, budgeting, and

international negotiations. The agency lacks the

personnel to engage in R&D activities or detailed

program oversight, and it must depend on Russian

industry to carry out many of the functions that

NASA’s field centers perform in the United States.

Whatever the prognosis for the commercial

space industry, Russian space science will likely

suffer during the next few years. The Institute of

Space Research (IKI) is the official body that orchestrates Russia’s efforts in space science, and although IKI is a part of the Russian Academy of

Sciences (RAS), it depends on the RSA for its

funding. Funding for science will almost certainly

take aback seat to funding for projects that are either necessary to the state or that promise to bring

in Western currency. Two other organizations are

involved in determining Russia’s space science

efforts: 1) the Interdepartmental Scientific and

Technical Council on Space Research (MNTS

KI), which provides peer review of proposed projects and is chaired by the head of RAS, and 2) the

Interdepartmental Expert Commission, which is

made up of chief designers from industry and

members of other ministries and which tries to

coordinate the needs of industry with those of the

scientific community.

The Russian space program is suffering from the current political and economic climate in

the FSU. The budget for space activities is decreasing

sharply The survival of some parts of Russia’s space

program will depend on cooperation with other countries.

27 The agreement, which was signed in September 1993, limits Russian commercial launches to eight between 1993 and 2000. See chapter 5, “Governments as Regulators.”
20 I U. S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

The Russian space-related work force has decreased 30 to 35 percent over the past three years.

A total of 200,000 workers have left the industry

for more lucrative aerospace jobs elsewhere, both

inside and outside Russia. Many of these workers

are young people who are leaving for more promising futures in the emerging private sector. One of

the largest aerospace firms, RSC Energia, used to

hire 2,000 young people each year; now it hires

200. From December 1994 through February

1995, RSA argued forcefully in the Russian media

and before the Duma that unless its 1995 funding

request was met, the space program could collapse. Although the Duma was publicly sympathetic, there is no reason to expect that RSA will

fare better in 1995 than it did in 1994, when it reportedly received approximately one-quarter of

the funding it requested, and one-half of what had

been allocated by the government. On the other

hand, the space program has already survived

what may be the worst times. Efforts at restructuring the space program and moving to a market-oriented way of doing business have ameliorated the

situation and are continuing. Systems required by

the government (such as reconnaissance satellites) will continue to be funded, but funds for basic research, new designs, and many commercial

projects will almost certainly have to come from

external sources. Despite many economic hardships, the Russian civil and military space programs continue to lead the world in annual

numbers of launches and active satellites.

NASA's purchase of goods and services from Russia serves important foreign policy goals

and improves the chances that Russia will be able to

meet its obligations to the International Space Station.

The scale of NASA funding that this requires, however,

further increases the political risk faced by the International Space Station program.

The planned payment of nearly $650 million

from the NASA budget during FY 1994-97

(directly and through contractors) for Russian

space goods and services represents by far the

largest transfer of funds from the U.S. budget to

Russian government and private organizations in

that period.28

Symbolically, these payments are an important

international signal of U.S. support for Russia’s

transition to a market economy. Given Russia’s

pride in its aerospace accomplishments, U.S. support for that sector takes on added political and

psychological significance. U.S. purchases of

Russian space goods and services should also help

to sustain Russian adherence to the Missile

Technology Control Regime, both because of the

political linkage that was established when the

$400 million NASA/RSA contract was announced 29 and because the funding will help preserve employment for Russian engineers and

technicians in at least some major Russian spaceindustrial centers. By funding a significant portion of the total RSA budget and making

payments to Russian enterprises that play pivotal

roles in the Russian contribution to the International Space Station program (such as RSC Energia and the Khrunichev Enterprise), NASA

improves the chances that Russia will be able to

meet its obligations to the space station project.

On the other hand, the size of the funding requirement virtually guarantees that it will be

controversial when considered by Congress, particularly in the context of efforts to reduce the U.S.

budget deficit. Moreover, some observers have

questioned the wisdom of supporting the Russian

aerospace industry, which provided much of the

technological underpinnings for the Soviet threat

to the United States. However, most, if not all, of

these funds would be spent in industrial subsec28 See chapter 3, “The Financial Dimension,” for a detailed discussion of these payments.

29 The White House, “Joint Statement on Space Cooperation,” from the first meeting of the U.S. Russian Joint Commission on Economic

and Technological Cooperation, Washington, DC, Sept. 2, 1993.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings 121

tors that support spaceflight rather than ballisticmissile production.

The French experience in cooperating

with the Soviet Union and Russia since 1966 largely

parallels and confirms that of the United States.

France and the European Space Agency have

the two most significant programs of space cooperation with Russia other than the United States.

The long French relationship with the FSU demonstrated an early understanding and acceptance

of the importance of political motives for space

cooperation. 30 French president DeGaulle's 1966

decision to begin cooperating with the Soviet

Union on space projects was principally intended

as an assertion of French independence within the

Western alliance, but it quickly acquired significant substantive content, particularly in the space

sciences. In 1982, France and the Soviet Union

began a series of cooperative human-spaceflight

activities, despite strains in the political relationships with Western nations caused by Soviet actions in Poland. These actions precipitated a U.S.

decision, in the same year, to allow formal space

ties to lapse. In contrast, the French opted to maintain cooperative ties, adjusting the scale of cooperation in response to the state of the political

environment.

ESA, which is a relatively new participant in

cooperating with Russia, is now spending significant amounts on several major projects. In all,

ESA committed about $81 million to Russia to

pay for Mir flights and other activities between

November 1992 and the end of 1994. ESA has

budgeted approximately $240 million to provide

European-built hardware for use on Russian elements of the space station.

Although the Russian government

and Russian enterprises have preserved most of the

technical and managerial capabilities of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine also retains significant space assets and capabilities. Kazakhstan owns the Baikonur

launch facility and several tracking and data stations.

The United States may find it beneficial to form partnerships with firms and governmental entities in these

countries.

Kazakhstan. Russia and Kazakhstan have concluded a long-term agreement on the support

and use of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which

is a critical component in Russia’s launch infrastructure. The importance of this launch complex to the launch of space station components

and supplies guarantees U.S. interest in the

continuation of good political relations between Russia and Kazakhstan. NASA is exploring cooperation in environmental research,

space science, and telemedicine with Kazakhstan and is maintaining its own lines of communication with Kazakhstani space authorities in

order to follow space developments there

closely.

Ukraine. Russia itself uses launch vehicles with

significant Ukrainian content31 and Ukrainianbuilt components extensively.32 The United

States will have to determine the appropriate

balance between working directly with Ukrainian partners and developing ties through Russia. So far, the U.S. approach has been to rely

on Russia to represent Ukraine in matters in30 See appendix D and U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space, OTA-TM-STI-27 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1985), ch. 4.

31 An example is the Zenit booster, for which NPO Yuzhnoye, Ukraine, is the prime contractor and for which the Russian firm NPO Energomash provides the main engines.

32 However, some Russim enterprises are cutting back their dependence on Ukranian suppliers of space goods in a government-wide effort

to make the Russian space program independent of Ukraine. See Peter B. deSelding, “Russia Distances Space Program from Ukraine,” Space

News, Feb. 20-26, 1995, p. 3.
22 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

volving the space station partnership, while

awaiting confirmation of Ukrainian adherence

to the Missile Technology Control Regime

(MTCR). 33 Meanwhile, NASA is seeking to

advance cooperation with Ukraine in areas

such as environmental research and telemedicine.

Despite the economic and political

uncertainties, most early participants in cooperative

ventures have found the potential gains worth the problems of pursuing cooperative projects. Participants

suggest that any organization planning cooperation

with Russian (or other former Soviet) organizations take

several precautions to enhance the success and minimize the risks of such projects.

Plan for the possibility of nonperformance.

Given the significance of the Russian contribution to the space station, the U.S. ability to

make up for delays or for failure to deliver is severely limited by available U.S. resources .34 In

robotic space exploration, program managers

emphasize the importance of such planning

from the outset.

Seek a better understanding of the larger political and economic forces that could affect Russia’s ability to deliver on commitments. Some

increased confidence might be obtained

through further systematic analysis of Russian

adaptation of their defense industry to post-Soviet conditions.

Maximize open and frank communication.

Minimizing technical and managerial surprises

means seeking (and allowing) a high degree of

communication and interpenetration between

U.S. programs and their Russian counterparts,

both for the space station partnership and in robotic space cooperation.

Be prepared for delays and reverses, and seek

good advice. Businesspeople interviewed by

OTA believe that the best protection against the

immaturity of Russia’s legal and business systems is to obtain sound advice from Russian experts, to expect delays and reverses, and to be

patient.

■ Be aware of and manage cultural differences effectively. As noted in finding 1, cultural differences can also increase the level of project risk.

To minimize these risks, U.S. entities should:

Sensitize all personnel who will be in contact

with Russian personnel to be aware of cultural differences, learn ways to avoid affront,

and build personal rapport with their Russian

counterparts.

Resist the temptation to assume that U.S. and

Russian personnel share common assumptions about the meaning of business or contractual terms and concepts; when in doubt,

such terms should be spelled out. Find out

who has the authority to make the needed decisions.

Avoid postures or assumptions of superiority,

particularly in technical areas; a good rapport

and mutual respect for each other’s technical

achievements and capabilities are critically

important.

Make use of the best available expertise in

Russian nonaerospace business law and practices, both to structure relationships properly

and to avoid surprises as much as possible

when political or financial circumstances

change.

Experts disagree over the extent to

which cooperation with the Russian government and industry on space projects would affect the retention of

U.S. jobs.

Some industry officials have expressed concern that U.S. jobs could be lost as a result of using

Russian technology in the U.S. space program.

Others have argued that skillful incorporation of

33 Ukraine has agreed to abide by the restrictions of the MTCR, but before being admitted to the regime, it must demonstrate its adherence

to the terms of the regime.

34 The United States cannot afford to maintain Parallel developments for the Russian FGB module or the Soyuz-TM crew-return vehicle.
Chapter 1 Introduction and Findings | 23

Russian technologies in U.S. projects could save

taxpayer dollars in publicly funded programs such

as the space station and could boost U.S. international competitiveness in commercial programs.

Although the use of Russian technologies and

know-how may cause some job shifts, and even

the loss of certain technical skills, if U.S.-Russian

cooperative activities are properly structured,

they could improve the scope of the U.S. space

program and, possibly, enhance U.S. competitiveness.

Russian launch vehicles and related systems

(particularly propulsion systems) have the most

obvious potential for commercial use. Russian

launch experience is unmatched, and both existing hardware and underlying technological developments can fill important gaps in U.S.

capabilities. On the other hand, U.S. national security interests demand that the United States

maintain its national launch capability and

technology base. The simple purchase of vehicles

or launch services appears to be less attractive

than joint ventures, co-production of vehicles and/

or systems, and analogous business arrangements

as ways of accommodating these differing interests.
History and

Current Status

of the Russian

Space Program

n 1957, the Soviet Union put the first satellite, Sputnik, into

orbit. In 1961, it launched the first human, Yurii Gagarin,

into space. From that time until its dissolution in 1991, the

U.S.S.R. maintained a robust space program, often following lines of development very different from its one major competitor, the United States. However fast the political and

economic landscape may be changing in Russia, the speed with

which the space program can change and the directions it can take

are constrained by how it developed during the Soviet era. This

chapter gives a synopsis of the legacy of the Soviet space program.1 It then describes what we know about the current status

and structure of the Russian space program and what direction it

might take in the next few years.

THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM

Russia’s civilian space program is still using equipment and

material manufactured and stored before the dissolution of the

U.S.S.R., such as stockpiles of Proton rockets, satellites, and the

Mir Space Station. Some of the impetus for the high-level production was a desire to equal or surpass U.S. accomplishments in

space. Figure 2-1, which shows the number of launches in the

United States and in the U.S.S.R. since 1957, not only demonstrates the productive capacity of the U.S.S.R.’s space industry,

but also indicates the difference in design philosophies of the two

countries. Where the United States built long-lived, technically

1 Much of the material in this chapter is drawn from N.L. Johnson and D.M. Rodvold,

Europe and Asia in Space, 1991-1992, DC-TR-2191.103-1 (Colorado Springs, CO: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1993).

| 25
26 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

SOURCE: Marcia S. Smith, Space Activities of the United States, CIS, and Other Launching Countries/Organizations: 1957-1993, Congressional

Research Service Issue Briefs, Washington, DC, Mar 29, 1994.

sophisticated payloads, the U.S.S.R. built much

shorter-lived satellites that required more frequent

replacement.

The difference in design philosophy between

the two countries goes back to the origins of their

space programs. At the end of World War II, the

German rocket scientists from Peenemünde, who

were responsible for the V-2 Rocket, were part of

the spoils of war divided between the United

States and the U.S.S.R. Both countries used the

experience and skills of these men to set up their

ballistic-missile programs. Because the Soviet

hydrogen bomb was so much larger and heavier

than the one developed in the United States, it required a larger, more powerful rocket to carry it. In

fact, the Soviet Union produced the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the world,

which was known in the West as the R-7. The Soviets’ expertise in producing rockets with large lift

capacities then made it possible for them to be the

first to produce launchers that could carry humans

into orbit.

The successful production of rockets with large

lift capacities reduced incentives to make payloads compact and light. To this day, the Russian

satellite is less sophisticated in its electronics (Soviet satellites continued to use vacuum tubes long

after the West had switched to solid-state components) and heavier than its Western counterparts.

The Soviets built satellites with a much shorter design life than was typical in the United States. The

requirement to maintain these space systems led

to the Soviet Union’s remarkable (by Western

standards) ability to replace damaged or obsolete

satellites. For some types of satellite, the Soviet

Union was able to launch a replacement in 24 to 48

hours.

Both in the United States and the Soviet Union,

the space program was a symbol of the country’s

technological superiority and productive capacity.

The United States kept its military program out of

the public eye and created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a separate civilian space program, with its own budget,

as the focus of the national civilian space effort.

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, never

created separate civil and military space programs; the same budget supported both efforts.

Much of the same infrastructure, production organizations, design bureaus, and personnel were
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program | 27

used to service both programs. Furthermore, there

was no functioning legislative body that determined the budget; instead, funds went directly

from the government to the design bureaus and

production organizations via the ministries (figure 2-2). Ultimately, the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided

what was to be funded. Which projects the Central

Committee considered worthy of funding depended in part on what the United States was doing at the time and who among the industrial and

military leaders had the government’s ear.

The procurement of any system for the space

program, civil or military, began with an order

from the Council of Ministers. Money was then

appropriated for the Ministry of General Machine

Building (MOM), which passed it directly to the

plant or design bureau chosen to do the work. The

same funds would be used to do the systems tests,

and if the tests went well, the Military Industrial

Commission (VPK) would place the order for

large-scale production. Once all the pieces were in

place to produce a system that fulfilled requirements and had passed testing, the system’s rigidity

would deter attempts to infuse innovative and

untested technological changes. Often, one welltested design for a spacecraft would be used in

widely disparate parts of the space program. Commonly, a spacecraft designed for the Soviet human

space program would be used for robotic purposes. For example, the Soviet Vostok spacecraft,

the type that carried Gagarin into orbit, was modified to become the Zenit photographic-reconnaissance spacecraft and, also, the Photon materials-processing platform.

THE RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM

❚ The Breakup of the U.S.S.R.

In December of 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved. Of the 15 republics

of the U.S.S.R., the three Slavic states (Russia,

Ukraine, and Belarus) joined the Commonwealth

of Independent States (CIS) on December 8; the

five central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan)

and the three transcaucasian states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldava) joined on December 28;

and Georgia joined in 1993. The Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) are not members of

the CIS. At the end of December 1991, to keep the

former Soviet space program intact, Russia led an

attempt to form a CIS space agency.2 That organization has turned out not to be influential, and

although Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and

Uzbekistan have all formed their own space agencies, Russia is by far the dominant player in the

post-Soviet space program.

With the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. has come

the daunting task of establishing a new form of

government in Russia and, after decades of economic and political isolation from the West, altering a command economy to make it competitive

with Western markets. The Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party are no longer the

chief decisionmakers in Russia. A newly instated3

Duma, or legislative assembly, controls the appropriations process, while the executive ministries are subordinate to the prime minister, who is

2 The “Minsk Space Agreement,” signed December 30, 1991, by representatives of the republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Russian Federation, lays out general guidelines for continuing the U.S.S.R.’s

space program through combined use of resources and proportionate funding. Ukraine signed in the summer of 1992. The document itself is

kept in the archives of the Belarus Republic in the capital city of Minsk.

3 On September 21, 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. Two weeks later, on

October 3 and 4, he used the Russian Army to suppress resistance to his order by a group of deputies from the dissolved Soviet. Yeltsin ordered

a referendum on a new constitution and elections on December 12, 1993. The resulting election created a bicameral legislature, which had as

its upper house the Federation Council and as its lower house the historically named State Duma. For an account of the conflict and the elections,

see J. Nichol, Congressional Research Service, Russia’s Violent Showdown: Chronology of Events, September 21-October 4, 1993, 93-879 F

(Washington, DC: October 1993), and J. Nichol, Congressional Research Service, Russian Legislative Elections and Constitutional Referendum: Outcome and Implications for U.S. Interests, 94-19 FAN (Washington, DC: January 1993).
28 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

General Secretary of the

Central Committee of the

Communist Party

I

Central Committee of the Communist Party 1

GRU I

I I

I 1 1

TsNII

Mash

I

KEY: ADF=Air Defense Forces; AF=Air Force, GF=Ground Forces, GKGM= State Committee for Geodesy and Mapping, GKNT= State Committee

for Science and Technology, GRU=State Intelligence Directorate (Military Intelligence), GUGK= State Directorate for Hydrometrology, GUKOS=State Directorate for Space Means, IKI = Institute of Space Research, MNTS KI = Interdepartmental Scientific and Technical Council on Space

Research, MOM= Ministry of General Machine Building; Nll=Scientific Research Institute, NPO=Scientific Production Organization, S& R= Search

and Rescue; SKKP= System for Monitoring Outer Space, SPRN= System for Warning of Missile Attack, SRF=Space Rocket Forces, TsPK=Gagarin

Cosmonaut Training Center; VPK=MiIitary Industrial Commission.

SOURCE: Maxim Tarasenko, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology,

appointed by the president. As a consequence, the

Russian space program faces difficulties in

organizing a network of facilities that stretches

across several independent countries. As long as

the non-Russian republics were part of the

U. S. S. R., facilities such as design bureaus, factories, a launch facility (cosmodrome), and many

sites used for satellite telemetry and tracking were

1994.

available to the ruling body in Moscow for its use.

Now, the independent republics are in a position

to demand payment for facilities on their land, for

hardware, and for services.

Very few of the facilities outside Russia can be

considered indispensable to the survival of its

space program. However, the Baikonur Cosmodrome is one facility that Russia would have a

4
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program 129

Launch facility

The only launch facility in the former Soviet Union now outside Russia is the Baikonur Cosmodrome,

in Tyuratam, Kazakhstan.

Organization for launch-vehicle and satellite design and manufacture

NPO Yuzhnoye (formerly the Yangel Design Bureau) is located in Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Yuzhnoye produces the SS-18 and SS-24 ballistic missiles and the SL-11 (Tsyklon-M), SL-14 (Tsyklon), and

SL-16 (Zenit) launchers. It also produces remote-sensing, intelligence, and weather satellites. At one

time, NPO Yuzhnoye had nearly 30,000 employees.

Spacecraft command-and-control centers

The Space Command, Control, and Tracking System (KIK) has its main control centers near Moscow: 1 ) the Flight Control Center (TsUP) at Kaliningrad, which handles planetary missions, the Mir

Space Station, and Soyuz missions to Mir, and 2) the Satellite Control Center (TsUS) at Golitsino, which

handles all civilian and military satellites. KIK also has sites outside Russia in Georgia, Kazakhstan,

Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. It controls the nearly 180 currently active Russian and Commonwealth of lndependent States satellites. A subset of these sites is also used as the primary support network for the

Mir Space Station.

The Long-Range Space Communications System (TsDKC), which controls scientific spacecraft in

high Earth orbit or in interplanetary flight, has sites in Russia and Ukraine.

Space-surveillance facilities

The System for Monitoring Outer Space (SKKP)1 and the System for Warning of Missile Attacks

(SPRN) use HEN HOUSE and Large Phased Array Radar developed in the 1960s and 1980s. Sites outside Russia are in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Latvia. SKKP also uses seven optical sensors located in Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, and it uses five electro-optical sensors located in Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Turkmenia, and Ukraine.

1 This facility is now referred to officially as the Space Surveillance System.

SOURCE: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1994.

hard time replacing quickly.4 Rather than build a and are being replaced with space-based autorelay

new launch complex, the Russian government has satellites. 6 Russia must now deal with the producdecided that it is more effective and cheaper, for tion organizations and design bureaus that lie outthe time being, to lease the cosmodrome from side its borders as it would with any other foreign

Kazakhstan for the next 20 years at least.5 Most of enterprise. Box 2-1 shows some of the facilities

the spacecraft command, tracking, and control and organizations that now lie outside Russia.

stations outside Russia have been taken offline

4 Although Baikonur is the usual name for the cosmodrome located near the Tyuratam railway station in Kazakhstan, the town of Baikonur

lies some 320 km (200 miles) northeast of the cosmodrome.

5 The Military Space Forces (VKS) and the Russian Space Agency (RSA) are struggling over whether or not to establish a new cosmodrome

at the old ballistic-missile site in Svobodny. The VKS wants the security of launching all military payloads from Russian soil, but the RSA does

not want its funding diluted by having money diverted away from Baikonur.

6 The command and tracking stations in Ukraine are still online.
30 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

After drawn-out negotiations dating back to

1992, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of

Russia and his Kazakh counterpart, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, signed a treaty on December 10, 1994,

that leases to Russia the use and control of Baikonur until the year 2014, with the possibility for a

10-year extension of the lease. In the near future,

those same parties are expected to sign an agreement leasing to Russia several military test ranges

that lie in Kazakh territory. One plan under consideration would convert the ballistic-missile

launch site at Svobodny into a space-launch

facility to reduce or eliminate dependence on

Baikonur.7

❚ The Russian Space Agency

With the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., a new governmental structure and, two years later, a new

constitution were established in Russia. Russia’s

legislative structures started to play a more significant role in governing, and the executive branch

revised its structure. (See figure 2-3 for the organization of the revised government as it bears on

the space program.) Because of the importance of

the space program to Russia’s defense and economic well-being and because the space industry

would have to compete in the world market to survive, the Russian government empowered a separate agency to control the direction of the state

space program and to act as the representative of

the Russian space program in dealings with the

Newly Independent States (NIS) and other foreign

countries.

The Russian Space Agency (RSA) was established by decree of the president of Russia on

February 25, 1992, and was given its charter8 by

the legislative branch on October 6, 1993, with a

mandate to “make efficient use of Russia’s spacerocket complex in the interests of the Russian Federation’s socio-economic development, security

and international cooperation. . . .”9 RSA is supposed to be funded as a separate item in the Russian federal budget, as it was in 1993 and is

expected to be in 1995. In 1994, the funding for

RSA was not a separate line item but came

through the Ministry of Science. RSA’s organizational structure, which is similar to NASA’s, is

shown in figure 2-4.10 Under the Soviet system,

there had never been any agency whose sole purpose was to formulate and implement government

space policy. The existence of such an agency has

changed the way the space program is run in several ways:

 It is now possible to separate the civil and military parts of Russia’s space program. Though

the military still commands a large portion of

resources in the space program, Russia is moving away from having Space Forces personnel

operate all launch and operations facilities.

Within the next two years, RSA will be responsible for paying civilian personnel to take over

functions that have to do with civilian launches

and the maintenance and operation of civilian

satellites and of the Mir Space Station. At present, RSA pays the salaries of 16,000 servicemen, who, although they are no longer paid by

the Space Forces, are still under the command

of the Commander of the Space Forces.

 Russian facilities are now more accessible to

the West because: 1) the military part of the

program has been separated out, which makes

transfer of sensitive military technology easier

to control, and 2) fewer government departments have to sign off on a cooperative venture.

Furthermore, RSA provides a single point of

contact for any organization wanting to do

7 “New Launch Base Sought,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, p. 54, Jan. 2, 1995.

8 Law of the Russian Federation on Space Activity, Section II, Article 6, October 1993.

9 Boris Yeltsin, Decree Establishing the Russian Space Agency, Moscow, February 1992.

10 However, RSA is an organization of only 200 people, compared with NASA’s workforce of 22,000. Lynn Cline, Director, Space Flight

Division, Office of External Relations, NASA, points out that it is impossible for RSA to oversee implementation of cooperative agreements

and contract awards in the way that NASA does, simply because of its small size.
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program 131

President of the

Russian Federation

Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation Government of the Russian Federation

Committee on Commission on

Transportation Russian Space

Defense Agency and Space

I Institute of Chemical 

FIS

FA GCI

I

Machine Building

I AGAT Institute

I NIITP I

TSNll Mash

r I I

I I

Space

Forces

RST

Directorate

Plants

NPOs

. . . . .,

 ID Expert MNTS KI

 Commission 

. . . . . . .

KEY: FA GCI =Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information; FIS=Foreign Intelligence Service; ID=lnterDepartmental; MS= Ministry of Security; Ros GM= Russian State Committee of Hydrometrology; RST=Rocket and Space Technology. See figure 2-2 for definitions of other

abbreviations,

SOURCE: Who's Who in Russian Aerospace Activities: A Reference List, ANSER, Center for International Aerospace Cooperation, December 1994.

business with Russia in commercial space en- all contracts between foreign entities and the

deavors, if the organization chooses to use it.l1 various enterprises of the Russian space proIn that regard, RSA replaces Glavkosmos, gram and is reportedly very willing to approve

which now primarily markets Russian technol- contracts that benefit those enterprises.12

ogy. RSA’s director, Yuri Koptev, must approve

11 There are company-to-company contacts, but RSA involves itself in the negotiations at some level.

12 Two Russian contacts, one a scientist with Applied Mechanics NPO and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the other an

analyst of the Russian space program, both agree that RSA is committed to helping the Russian aerospace industry do as much business with

foreign corporations as possible.
32 U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program | 33

RSA is involved in all phases of the development

of a system, from research and development

through production. At its inception, the

agency was given authority over several research and production organizations (figure

2-3), including the Central Scientific Research

Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash),

which operates the spacecraft control facilities

of the Flight Control Center (TsUP) at Kaliningrad. After a struggle between RSA and several

of the larger space enterprises, the Russian government, in a decree signed by Prime Minister

Chernomyrdin,13 gave control of 38 aerospace

enterprises to RSA, to be added to the four companies14 already under RSA control. This action shifted authority for the funding and

oversight of those enterprises from the State

Committee on Defense Industries to RSA. The

change also means that RSA is now responsible

for all defense conversion efforts.

RSA could also help make the transition to private enterprise less abrupt. In the recent privatization of one of Russia’s largest and most influential

space enterprises, Scientific Production Organization (NPO) (now Russian Space Corporation

(RSC)) Energia, ownership of 38 percent of the

company was retained by the government, that is,

by RSA. Of the remaining 62 percent, 10 percent

(120,000 shares at 1,000 rubles each) was offered

to the employees, 5 percent was given to management, 10 percent was held in reserve, 12 percent

was sold at auction, and 25 percent was exchanged

for privatization vouchers. As Russian aerospace

companies become more established in the world

market, the extent to which RSA has to subsidize

the infrastructure that supports those enterprises

could decrease significantly.

❚ Current Activities

The percentage of the total 1993 Russian Federation space budget devoted to the different areas

of Russia’s space program is shown in figure 2-5.

These resources are used to support Russia’s civilian and military objectives, namely,

exploring space,

pursuing space science,

maintaining human presence in space via

 space station and

 cargo and logistics vehicles,

maintaining information space systems,

such as

 navigation satellites,

 geodetic satellites,

 telecommunication satellites and

 observation satellites, and

maintaining space assets dedicated to national

security.

Of these, the severe budgetary constraints of

the past few years have curtailed efforts in space

science and exploration the most.15

Human Spaceflight

Russia has had a frequent human presence in

space since the Salyut program began in 1971.

The Salyut Space Stations passed through several

different designs before reaching the most recent

phase, which is represented by the Mir Space Station. Mir has been in orbit since 1986 and has been

permanently occupied since 1989. Although not

all of the operations have gone according to plan,

13 Government of the Russian Federation Decree #866, Moscow, July 25, 1994. The decree states, “The RSA will provide state control and

coordination of enterprises and organizations involved in the research, design, and production of rocket and space hardware for various purposes; to determine state scientific, technical, and industrial policy in the areas of rocket and space hardware and to ensure the fulfillment of

such policies; and to enable the fulfillment of conversion projects and the structural reorganization of the rocket and space industry.”

14 The original four enterprises under RSA control are the Scientific Research Institute of Chemical Machine Building (NIIKhimMash),

the AGAT Institute, the Scientific Research Institute of Thermal Processes (NIITP), and the Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine

Building (TsNIIMash).

15 The U.S.-Russian mission to Mars, which was scheduled to fly in 1994, will be lucky to get off the ground as early as 1996. The “Fire

and Ice” mission to explore Mercury and Pluto is now highly tentative. It stands to reason that in tight budgetary times, programs deemed less

essential will be cut back first, and those programs needed for national security or that can attract outside revenues will be given priority.
34 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Technology, materials, and material base 4% Systems research 4.3%

Energia-Buran 6% Communications, television, and navigation 3%

Control systems 2% Ecological and earth sciences 5%

Ground infrastructure 4% 

Launch vehicles 15% Outer-apace research 23%

Human flights 26%

SOURCE: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1995.

with several failures of the automatic docking system and occasional problems with power maintenance and environmental control, the Russians

have used the Mir station to gain more experience

in the adaptation of humans to the space environment than has any other nation.

The Mir Space Station has been used to perform international experiments in science and

space engineering. It has been host to astronauts

from the United States, England, Germany, Japan,

and other countries. The use of the station has given the Russians unequaled experience in the effects of prolonged spaceflight, extravehicular

activities, docking, and maintenance of facilities

in space. Experiments on Mir include research in

the fields of botany, biology, materials science,

and physiology, many of which included international participation. Because of their experience

with space stations, the United States expects

Russia to play a large part in the design and maintenance of the International Space Station.

Civil Space Systems

Russia has approximately 180 operational satellites in over 30 active satellite programs; in addition, many inactive, standby satellites can be

brought into use if needed. Box 2-2 summarizes

the active systems that are not strictly military.

Natlonal Secudty Space Systems

An early impetus for the development of satellites

was to use space for military observation, which

is one reason Sputnik created such a scare. 16 Later

came the realization that orbiting platforms could

be used for early-warning systems and space

weapons. The Russian antisatellite systems

(ASAT program dates back to 1963, and the first

ASAT intercept test was performed in 1968.

Russia currently operates several types of military-reconnaissance satellite17

:

■ Low-Earth-orbit (LEO) high-resolution satellites that fly for up to three months with l-meter

16 Even before the time of Sputnik, both the United States and the Soviet Union understood the surveillance and communications potential

of satellites. 17 N.L. Johnson, Kaman Sciences Corporation, Colorado Springs, CO, personal communication, February 1995.
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program | 35

(or better) resolution. The photographic film

returns to Earth and is picked up.

 Satellites with both photographic film return

and digital transmission capabilities. These satellites remain in orbit for up to two months.

 Satellites with lifetimes of a year or more that

transmit their digital data to Earth via relay

from geosynchronous-orbit (GEO) satellites.

 Topographic mappers that fly for six weeks

with 2-meter-panchromatic and 5-meter-color

resolutions.

 Vostok-class satellites which fly for two to three

weeks and are assumed to function like the Resurs-F remote-sensing satellites (box 2-2).

 A new satellite, designated Kosmos 2290 and

launched on the Zenit, which is still under assessment.

 EORSAT (Electronic Ocean Reconnaissance),

a four-satellite constellation that flies at altitudes of about 400 km. The system is believed

to be able to estimate naval positions to within

2 km.

 Russia flies two other types of electronic intelligence satellite. One, launched on the

Tsyklon, flies at an altitude of 650 km; the other, launched on the Zenit, flies at 850 km altitude.

Two constellations support ballistic-missileattack warning systems, and one supports an

ASAT system. One of the early-warning systems

has nine satellites in Molniya orbits equipped with

infrared sensors (see box 2-2 for an explanation of

the Molniya-type orbit); the other has two or three

satellites in GEO. The ASAT system operates by

waiting for the launch site at Baikonur to pass

through the orbital plane of the offending satellite,

at which time the ASAT would be launched on an

intercept path requiring one or two revolutions, or

between 90 and 200 minutes. A conventional explosive device would then destroy the target satellite.

❚ Launch Systems

Russia maintains a versatile fleet of launch vehicles capable of lifting payloads of half a metric

ton to 21 metric tons into LEO. All Russian- and

Ukrainian-built boosters, their primary launch

sites, principal manufacturers, and payload capacities are listed in the table in figure 2-6. These vehicles are launched from the two cosmodromes

currently in use, Plesetsk in Russia and Baikonur

in Kazakhstan.

Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur is the oldest space-launch facility in the

world and has supported more than 968 orbital

missions since 1957.18 Information from visiting

westerners and from wire and news reports confirm that the infrastructure is deteriorating, that

many buildings where work is going on are unheated, and that certain parts of the complex are in

disrepair.19 There were reports of strikes and protests last winter because of the harshness of conditions and the lack of basic amenities in the

neighboring town of Leninsk. Reportedly, bands

of thieves were even using camels to pull copper

cable from the ground, melting the cable down,

and selling the copper for its value as raw material.

The Russian press reported that one launch at Baikonur had to be postponed because of the theft of

specialized equipment.20

The picture is not altogether bleak, though. At

the cosmodrome itself, maintenance and modifications are being kept up to allow for the continued launching of all families of booster

traditionally launched out of Baikonur. Under the

18 About 70 missions failed to reach Earth orbit.

19 See, e.g., Oversight Visit: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Chairman’s Report of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, House of

Representatives, 103d Congress, 2d Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1994), Margaret Shapiro, “Site of

First Steps into Space Slips into Poverty,” The Washington Post, Mar. 19, 1995, p. A1, and Michael Specter, “Where Sputnik Once Soared into

History, Hard Times Take Hold,” The New York Times, Mar. 21, 1995, p. C1.

20 Vladimir Ardayev, “Kazakhstan: Depressing Landscape With Fireworks,” Isvestiya, Moscow, Nov. 3, 1994, p. 4 (Foreign Broadcast Information Service translated text).
36 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Telecommunications satellites

■

●

●

■

●

■

Molniya (“Lighting”) is a constellation of 16 satellites in highly elliptical (eccentricities of about 0.75),

semisynchronous orbits used for telephone, telegraph, and television transmission. The Molniya-type

orbit was designed by the U. S. S. R., and the satellites view broad regions of the Northern Hemisphere

for eight hours out of their 12-hour periods. The Molniya-type orbit has the advantage of giving better

coverage of the Earth at high latitudes than does a geostationary orbit. By choosing an orbit with an

inclination of 63.4°, the satellite’s point of closest approach remains fixed in the Southern Hemisphere, thereby ensuring that the satellite always flies over the same region in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ekran (“Screen”) satellites are geostationary at 99° east longitude and provide television and radio

transmission for Russia’s far-northern regions. At present, two such satellites are operational.

Gorizont (’(Horizon”) is a high-power telephone, telegraph, television, radio, and fax transmission satellite, which also handles maritime and international communications. Through Gorizont, Russia has

become increasingly more integrated into the Western system of communication satellites. When the

U.S.S.R. became a member of INTELSAT in 1991, it made Gorizont available to that system, and several Western nations now lease Gorizont transponders. The United States leased transponders during the Persian Gulf War to handle the increased communications traffic in the Middle East.

Gals is a television broadcasting system made up of one satellite in geosynchronous orbit (GEO).

Originally meant as a part of a national program, the satellite is currently serving foreign customers.

Luch is a three-satellite GEO system used for teleconferencing, television, video data exchange, and

telephone links. To date, only two of the three GEO satellites have ever been operational, and the

Luch has been used primarily in support of the Mir Space Station.

Raduga and Geyser (Geyser carries the Potok data-relay system) are constellations of satellites used

for military and government communications

Remote-sensing satellites

■

■

■

■

■

Resurs-F1, first flown in 1979 with a nominal lifetime of 14 days, performs low-altitude (250 to 400 km)

multispectral photography with cameras of 5- to 8-meter and 15- to 30-meter resolutions, and returns

the film.

Resurs-F2, first flown in 1987 with a nominal lifetime of 30 days, flies at altitudes of 170 to 450 km and

returns multispectral photographs with 5- to 8-meter resolution.

Almaz-1, first flown in 1991 (after a 1987 prototype), has a nominal lifetime of two years, flies at altitudes of 250 to 350 km, and uses a 15- to 30-meter-resolution synthetic aperture radar.

Resurs-0, first flown in 1985 (with prototypes during 1977-1983), has a nominal lifetime of three years

and performs multispectral imagery in Sun-synchronous orbit at altitudes of 600 to 660 km.

Okean-0, first flown in 1983, with a nominal lifetime of two years, performs multispectral sensing and

real aperture radar measurements for oceanographic surveys at altitudes of 630 to 660 km. This satellite can look at ice in the polar regions and spot weak points as an aid to navigation. Okean-0 has

also proved useful in search-and-rescue operations.

agreement between the Russian and Kazakh gov- money can be in the form of services and support

ernments whereby Russia will lease the cosmo- of Leninsk, which is home to the workers who are

drome, Russia gains control overall of Baikonur’s still employed at Baikonur.

facilities and will pay the Kazakh government the Facilities currently in use at Baikonur are reequivalent of$115 million per year. Some of that ported to be in good working order and operating
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program 137

Meteorological satellites

■ Meteor-2, first flown in 1975, carries a scanning photometer, an infrared radiometer, and a radiation

measurement complex. It is now being phased out. Meteor-3, first flown in 1984, carries a directscanning telephotometer, a store-and-dump scanning telephotometer, a direct-scanning radiometer,

a store-and-dump scanning radiometer, a UV spectrometer, a multichannel UV spectrometer (OzonM), and a radiation measurement complex, In 1991, the United States and Russia cooperated on a

project to place NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on a Meteor-3 spacecraft.

■ Electro, once called the Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite (GOMS), has been under

development since the 1970s. Launched October 31, 1994, it carries a scanning infrared radiometer,

a scanning telephotometer, and a radiation measurement complex.

Material processing and biological satellites

■ A Photon spacecraft, dedicated to materials science research, has flown every year since 1988, except for 1993. International organizations also make use of the Photon for their microgravity experiments. Bion, like the Photon, uses a Vostok-like recoverable spacecraft to perform life sciences experiments and to return the payload to Earth. Ten Bion flights have occurred over the past 20 years,

and the last seven have all had extensive international, including U. S., participation.

1 The eccentricity of an orbit IS a measure of how far that orbit is from being circular (A circular orbit has an eccentricity of zero )

Satellites have their greatest velocity at perigee and their smallest velocity at apogee The Molniya orbit is designed to have its perigee

in the Southern Hemisphere which puts the apogee in the Northern Hemisphere where the satellite needs to spend most of its time to

be most effective.

SOURCE: Kaman Science Corporation, 1994.

with the automated efficiency typical of the Russian launch industry. Baikonur supported 23

missions in 1993; and 30 in 1994. In addition, the

U.S. firm of Lockheed Aerospace is building a

payload-processing facility in support of its jointventure subsidiary Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia, and construction has begun on special

buildings dedicated to the processing of Western

payloads.

Russia launches five boosters from Baikonur

—Rokot, Tsyklon-M, Soyuz, Zenit, and Proton

(three-stage and four-stage). Energia, with and

without the shuttle Buran, is no longer operational, and the Molniya booster has not flown

since 1989. The Baikonur Cosmodrome supports

Russian programs in human spaceflight, interplanetary spaceflight, communications and earlywarning satellites in GEO, navigation and

geodetic satellites, remote-sensing satellites, satellites used for national security purposes, and

scientific satellites (including interplanetary satellites).

Plesetsk Cosmodrome

The cosmodrome at Plesetsk was, until last year,

the world’s busiest space-launch facility. It has averaged one launch per week for the past 10 years,

and it has launched nearly 1,400 missions since

1966, including 26 missions in 1993 and 18 in

1994. Plesetsk is capable of supporting launches

of Start-1, Kosmos, Tsyklon, Molniya, and

Soyuz. Plesetsk supports remote-sensing, meteorological, communications, navigation, and scientific satellites, as well as satellites used for

national security purposes.

Some Russian officials would like to see all

boosters launched from Russian soil. One plan

would upgrade Plesetsk so that it could launch
80 I

60

20

0 —

SL-14

Tsyklon

1977

Plesetsk

 Designator SL-19 SL-18

Rokot Start-1

1991 1993

Baikonur Plesetsk

SL-8

Kosmos

1964

Plesetsk

SL-11

Tsyklon-M

1966

Name

First Flight

Current Baikonur

Plesetsk Plesetsk

TsSKB | TsSKB

Launch Sites

Yuzhnoye Khrunichev Khrunichev

NPO Enterprise Enterprise

Salyut Yuzhnoye

Design NPO

Bureau

3-Stage 4-Stage

Ss-19 SS-25

Stage 1 Stage 1

Ss-19 SS-25

Stage 2 Stage 1

Breeze SS-25

Stage 1

N/A

2.0 (LEO) 0.5 (LEO)

Yuzhnoye

NPO

Energia Energia

NPO NPO I

Yuzhnoye

NPO

Yuzhnoye

NPO Samara Samar a

Configuration

Stage 1

2-Stage 4-Stage 3-Stage

RD-170 RD-253 RD-253

2-Stage

RD-216

2-Stage

RD-218

3-Stage

RD-218

N/A RD-219 RD-219 RD-0110 IRD-0110

I I N/A N/A

I

Block D/DM

13.7 (LEO) 2.5 (GEO) 20.6 (LEO)

Stage 4

Payload

I

88.0 (LEO) 30.0 (LEO)

I

1.5 (LEO) 1.8 (SEO) 7.32 (LEO)

Earlywarning

mission

3.5 (LEO) 4.0 (LEO)

Military Solar System Space

ELINT exploration, Station

communi- components

cations

navigation,

Molniya, All manned;

Kosmos Photon,

Bion,

Resurs-F,

Progress-M

Meteor,

Okean,

geodetic

Military

payloads,

e.g.,

ASAT,

EORSAT,

early warning

None None None

RORSAT

SS-5 SS-9

(Skean)

SS-9

(Scarp) (Scarp)

“The Energia and Energia/Buran are not currently operational.

SOURCE: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1995
Chapter 2 History and Current Status of the Russian Space Program 139

Payload to LEO1

Name Ballistic missile (metric tons) Launch site

SS-18K SS-18 4.4 Baikonur

Space Clipper SS-24 2. Air launch near Equator

Shtil SS-N-23 0.95 Air launch near Equator

Reef SS-N-20 1.5 Air launch

Surf SS-N-20/SS-N-23 2.4 Sea launch near Equator

1 Low Earth orbit,

SOURCE: Kaman Sciences Corporation, 1994

every vehicle in the fleet, but the financial constraints make that kind of construction unlikely in

the near term. A second proposal is to convert the

missile range at Svobodny into a cosmodrome for

civilian and military launches. The Russian Duma

has not approved the installation of facilities to

launch the proposed Angara heavy-lift launch vehicle, but it has not prohibited the planned 1996

operations of the Rokot small-payload launcher.

Engineers have already begun converting the old

ICBM silos for launching the Rokot, and the first

test launch from Svobodny is planned for summer

or fall of this year.

❚ Military Conversion

The end of the Cold War leaves Russia with several classes of ballistic missile that could be converted to commercial lift vehicles. Besides the

Start-1 and Rokot, which are already operational,

Russia will test several conversions in the next

few years. Conversion is costly, and the number of

systems that become operational will depend on

market demand. Table 2-1 shows the ballistic missiles that Russia has considered for conversion to

commercial launchers, along with their payload

capacities and launch sites.
The Cooperative

Experience

to Date

PUBLIC SECTOR

ooperation on civil space projects with the world’s other

space superpower has been discussed and sometimes pursued since the beginning of the Space Age, although during the Soviet period, competition generally dominated.1

Before 1991, the ability to pursue cooperation was frequently

compromised by the vicissitudes of the Cold War because the

linkage between space cooperation and broader superpower relations frequently worked to restrict even modest projects. For

example, the United States allowed the government-to-government agreement on the cooperative use of space to lapse in 1982

over Soviet imposition of martial law in Poland.

Although linkage to political concerns continues, it currently

works to stimulate rather than limit cooperative activity. Moreover, with serious space-budget shortfalls across the rest of the

spacefaring world, most observers of the U.S. space program consider extensive international cooperation, involving Russia as

well as traditional partners, essential to the achievement of national goals in space. This section briefly traces the history of

public sector space cooperation between the United States and the

1 For a detailed review of international cooperation and competition up to 1985, see

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, International Cooperation and Competition in Civilian Space Activities, ISC-239 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 1985). See also U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S.-

Soviet Cooperation in Space, TMI-STI-27 (Washington, DC :U.S. Government Printing

Office, July 1985). The standard political history of this period in science and technology,

with particular attention to space cooperation and competition between the United States

and the Soviet Union, is Walter A. McDougall, . . . The Heavens and the Earth: A Political

History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1985).

| 41
42 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Soviet Union (and later, its successor states) and

describes its status through early 1995.

❚ The Early Years: 1958-1971

Even before the launch of Sputnik 1, the United

States sought to engage the Soviet Union in space

cooperation on two broad fronts-diplomatically,

through proposals to guarantee the peaceful use of

outer space, and scientifically, through the machinery of the International Geophysical Year

(IGY).2 Both countries explicitly linked their initial satellite efforts to the IGY. After Sputnik 1,

both the Eisenhower Administration and Congress gave heightened emphasis to calls for scientific collaboration.3 Relatively little tangible

■

●

■

■

The objective of ASTP was to develop and

demonstrate compatible rendezvous and

docking systems for U.S. and Soviet manned

spacecraft. The docking mechanism to be

used during the seven-flight Shuttle-Mir program is an Improved variant on the ASTP design.

On July 17, 1975, three U.S. astronauts and

two Soviet cosmonauts docked Soyuz 19 with

an Apollo spacecraft that was carrying the

jointly developed docking module. Soyuz 19

and Apollo undecked after two days of symbolic visits between spacecraft.

ASTP was widely praised as a symbol of detente, while also criticized at the time as an expensive symbolic gesture that was wasting

scarce U.S. space funds.

Follow-on Shuttle-Salyut mission preparations

were suspended in 1978 amid worsening

U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations.

SOURCE. Off Ice of Technology Assessment, 1995.

cooperation resulted, however, because the competitive element predominated on both sides.

Even before his inauguration, President John F.

Kennedy commissioned an extensive study of potential space cooperation with the Soviet Union

and signaled this interest both in his Inaugural Address and in his first State of the Union message,

as part of a broader effort to engage the U.S.S.R. in

cooperation in relatively nonsensitive areas. The

study arrived at the White House on April 14,

1961, two days after Yurii Gagarin’s first orbital

flight.

The space-cooperation study contained more

than 20 individual proposals, ranging from armslength scientific collaboration to proposals forestablishing a joint lunar base. U.S. prestige around

the world suffered dramatically because of Gagarin’s flight, and as a result. the balance of U.S.

attention shifted to competition, particularly after

President Kennedy’s announcement of the Apollo

Program on May 25, 1961. However, a first, modest agreement on space cooperation between Moscow and Washington was reached in 1962; it

provided for a limited exchange of weather-satellite data, coordinated satellite measurements of

the Earth’s magnetic field, and communications

experiments involving the U.S. Echo II satellite.

Results were mixed, and cooperation in satellite

meteorology, in particular, was slow to begin.

❚ Civil Space Agreements, Apollo-Soyuz,

and Shuttle-Salyut: 1971-1982

The race to the Moon ended in 1969. Meanwhile,

in 1967, the United States and the Soviet Union

reached a political accommodation in the United

Nations (U. N.) Outer Space Committee, resulting

in the U.N. Treaty on Principles Governing the

Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of

Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.

2 The IGY was established in 1957 by the International Council of Scientific Unions to pool international efforts in studying the Earth, the

oceans, the atmosphere, and outer space.

3 For a detailed discussion of Cooperation before 1974, see Dodd L. Harvey and Linda C. Ciccoritti, U. S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space (Miami, FL: University of Miami, Center for Advanced International Studies, 1974).
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 43

Early in the 1970s, the general political thaw

between the United States and the U.S.S.R. extended to space cooperation. A series of seniorlevel meetings between the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration (NASA) and U.S.S.R.

Academy of Sciences delegations in 1970-71 resulted in agreements on the organization of the

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) and on cooperation in satellite meteorology; meteorological

sounding rockets; research on the natural environment; robotic exploration of near-Earth space, the

Moon, and the planets; and space biology and

medicine. The 1972 Agreement on Cooperation in

the Peaceful Exploration and Use of Outer Space,

signed at the summit by Presidents Richard M.

Nixon and Alexei Kosygin, formalized these understandings and endorsed the Joint Working

Group (JWG) structure that had emerged to implement ASTP and to develop specific cooperative

projects (see box 3-1 and photo above).

Work on ASTP proceeded relatively smoothly,

although both sides approached the flight with

suspicion and caution. Meanwhile, modest but

mutually satisfactory cooperation-largely restricted to exchanges of data and coordinated experiments of various types-was developing in

the areas of space science and applications, particularly in space biology and medicine.

Not long after the successful ASTP flight in

1975 (figure 3-l), the two countries agreed to pursue a follow-on rendezvous and docking activity

involving the U.S. Space Shuttle (which had not

yet flown) and the Soviet Salyut Space Station

(figure 3-2). Shuttle-Salyut was the centerpiece of

the renewal of the intergovernmental agreement

between the U.S.S.R. and the United States in

1977 under President Jimmy Carter, which otherwise extended the 1972 agreement’s provisions.

Although extensive science planning for ShuttleSalyut was completed in 1978, U.S. enthusiasm

for the venture began to wane as relations cooled

because of conflicts over human rights in the

U.S.S.R. and, later, Soviet international actions.

Concern about the possible technology-transfer

implications of ASTP led to an extended interagency review, which found the program innocent

NASA Administrator James Fletcher with Apollo 16

astronauts, briefs President Richard Nixon on the

ApoII O-SOy u Z Test Project.

of any technology losses, though it acknowledged

that the Soviets had probably learned a good deal

about NASA’s management of large projects. The

study also recommended a careful, arms-length

approach to additional cooperation, with structured interagency review of all proposals.

In 1978 and 1979, U.S. (and perhaps Soviet) interest in Shuttle-Salyut diminished further. The

White House decided not to schedule the next

technical meeting,. which the United States had

agreed to host. In 1979, President Carter mandated a sharp reduction in remaining activity under the 1977 agreement, following the Russian

intervention in Afghanistan. In late 1981, with the

imposition of martial law in Poland, the Reagan

Administration announced that in retaliation, the

civil space agreement would be allowed to lapse in

May 1982.

■ Hiatus and Improvisation: 1982-1987

In the absence of an agreement, U.S. officials authorized only low-profile cooperation, with approval on a case-by-case basis by the White

House. Despite this stricture, a certain amount of

activity continued. COSPAS-SARSAT, a satellite-aided search-and-rescue project involving

cooperation between the SARSAT partners (the

United States, Canada, and France) and the Soviet

COSPAS program, was judged by the White

House to have overriding humanitarian value and
44 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

SOURCE: David S.F. Portree, Mir Hardware Heritage, Houston, TX, 1994

operated uninterrupted.4 NASA was allowed to

continue to pursue cooperation in space biology

and medicine, which, along with planetary data

exchanges, had produced the most valuable scientific results under the 1972 and 1977 agreements;

U.S. biomedical instrumentation flew on Soviet

biosatellite missions in 1983 and 1985. Planetarydata exchanges also continued, principally involving studies of the atmosphere and surface of

Venus.

In 1981, the space agencies of the United

States, the U. S. S.R., Europe, and Japan formed

the Inter-Agency Consultative Group (IACG) for

Halley’s Comet, an informal coordinating framework for the upcoming Halley’s Comet apparition. Both the United States and the Soviet Union

were members of the IACG, and NASA’s Deep

Space Network provided most of the tracking support for the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s)

Giotto and for the Venus and Halley encounters of

the U. S. S.R.’s VEGA-1 and 2. U.S. scientists also

participated in data exchanges and joint analyses

with Soviet counterparts through the IACG. In

addition, several U.S. or partly U.S. instruments

actually flew on the Soviet spacecraft, by virtue of

4

SARAT stands for Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking, and COSPAS is from the Russian for “Space System for the Search of

Vessels in Distress.”
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date 145

SOURCE David S.F. Portree, Mir Hardware Heritage, Houston, TX, 1994

agreements negotiated with third parties who, in

turn, concluded agreements with the U.S.S.R.5

As the Reagan Administration began to feel its

way toward an improved relationship with the

U. S. S.R., the first tentative steps were taken toward resumption of more formal, high-profile

space cooperation. In January 1984, days before

President Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address, in which he invited U.S. friends and allies to

participate in the construction of a space station,

the U.S. privately proposed to the Russians the

idea of a simulated space-rescue mission involving the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Salyut-7 Space

Station. Publicly and privately, the Russians were

cool to the idea, perhaps because of the perceived

asymmetry of a mission in which the Space

Shuttle would simulate a rescue of cosmonauts

from Mir. That summer and for the next two years,

the U.S.S.R. also insisted on a linkage between

progress in space arms control and a willingness

5 In one instance, a U.S.-built flight instrument for the Vega mission was actually subjected to formal interagency review and approved for

export to Russia on the ground that it was “not sophisticated” enough to be considered space hardware. A second instrument for the Phobos

missions to Mars was on its way through a similar review process in December 1984, when the builder of the first instrument publicly proclaimed that he had outmaneuvered the Washington bureaucracy, angering the reviewing agencies and foreclosing further approvals at that

time.
46 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

to consider expanded civil space cooperation, effectively precluding forward movement on the

latter.

In mid-1986, however, the situation changed

dramatically. In an exchange of letters between

General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan, Gorbachev dropped the arms-control requirement. Moscow accepted a U.S.

proposal for an exploratory meeting in Moscow in

September, at which U.S. and Russian delegations

discussed and agreed upon a 16-item list of areas

for expanded cooperation. The agreement text itself was negotiated in Washington at the end of

October 1986, and in April 1987, rather than wait

for a summit meeting, the two sides signed the

agreement at the foreign minister level.

❚ Glasnost and the End of the Soviet Era:

1987-1991

The 1987 agreement, which owed much of its restrictive structure and provisions to the 1970s experience, differed importantly from its

predecessors by including an annex with a list of

16 approved areas for cooperation. It resurrected

the JWG structure and authorized the formation of

groups in space biology and medicine, solar system exploration, astronomy and astrophysics,

space physics, and earth sciences. The JWGs were

expected to meet at least annually. Amendments

to the annex, announced at a succeeding summit

in May 1988, authorized the exchange of instruments for flight on robotic spacecraft, as well as

the exchange of planning data on future missions.

Interagency approval was not forthcoming, however, for activity in human spaceflight going beyond research in space medicine or for

higher-profile robotic cooperation in Mars exploration.

In August 1991, the United States and the

U.S.S.R. achieved an important milestone with

the flight of the U.S. Total Ozone Mapping

Spectrometer (TOMS) on a Soviet Meteor-3 polar-orbiting meteorological satellite. More than

two years elapsed between the agreement in principle and the conclusion of the U.S.-U.S.S.R.

Memorandum of Understanding on the flight, a

delay largely attributable to intensive U.S. interagency negotiations on technology-transfer controls. Finally, against the background of the

political evolution in Eastern Europe and Russia,

and given the importance of continuity in the

collection of atmospheric ozone data, a compromise was reached. Shortly after the successful

launch, while U.S. engineers and scientists were

still in Moscow for checkout activities, the abortive anti-Gorbachev coup was launched, signaling

the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.

❚ Current Cooperation in Space Science

and Applications

The U.S.S.R.’s collapse and the emergence of separate Russian, Kazakhstani, and Ukrainian states

dramatically changed the political context for

space cooperation. The linkage between political

interests and cooperation remains as strong as before, but the balance of forces in that linkage has

changed substantially. Previously, politics provided a context for cooperation, limits on what

could be done (for both political and technologytransfer-control reasons), and an occasional stimulus to pursue cooperative activities that might

not otherwise have had sufficient budgetary priority (such as ASTP). Program managers constantly

faced the reality that the political linkage could

work to disrupt cooperative undertakings, as

events in Afghanistan and Poland had during

1982-87.

Today, the U.S. desire to promote economic

and political stability in Russia and to provide tangible incentives for positive Russian behavior in

areas such as preventing proliferation of missile

and other military technologies is a powerful engine behind cooperation. As a result, the United

States has made unprecedented commitments of

resources to Russia,6 including large payments in

exchange for Russian products and services, and it

6 See “The Financial Dimension,” later in this chapter.
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 47

is now willing to place Russian hardware and

launch services on the critical path of keystone

NASA projects, particularly the space station.

Only a few years ago, the Report of the Advisory

Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program opposed placing any foreign cooperative

contribution in the critical path of U.S. projects,7

and NASA managers had resisted allowing even

such a long-time ally as Canada to play a similar

role on the space station without extensive agreement provisions against default.

Recognizing the risks inherent in this situation,

particularly given Russian8 political and economic instability, NASA has sought to put arrangements in place to hedge against any Russian

default on commitments. Generally speaking, in

robotic space science and applications, Russian

participation is not essential to specific projects,

making contingency planning possible and costeffective.

On June 17, 1992, a new civil space agreement

was concluded at the first summit between President George Bush and Russian President Boris

Yeltsin. Drafted and quickly agreed to in preparation for the summit, the agreement was substantially enabling and permissive rather than

restrictive.9 For the first time since 1977, it raised

the prospect of cooperation in human spaceflight,

including “Space Shuttle and Mir Space Station

missions involving the participation of U.S.

astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.” For the first

time, the agreement also foresaw cooperation in

space technology and explicitly raised the possibility of “working together in other areas, such as

the exploration of Mars.”

The 1992 agreement sanctioned a very significant increase in activity across the entire range of

cooperative space science and applications projects between NASA (the U.S. lead agency) and

the Russian Space Agency (RSA), the Russian

Academy of Sciences, and several other Russian

agencies. 10

In a joint statement accompanying the agreement, the two governments also agreed to “give

consideration to” a specific exchange of astronaut-cosmonaut flight opportunities and to a

Shuttle-Mir rendezvous and docking mission. Finally, the government announced that NASA

would be giving a contract to a Russian enterprise,

Scientific Production Organization (NPO) Energia, principally to study the potential use of the

Soyuz-TM spacecraft as an interim crew-rescue

vehicle for Space Station Freedom.11

On July 20, 1992, NASA Administrator Daniel

Goldin and RSA General Director Yuri Koptev released a Memorandum of Discussion on talks held

in Moscow, which elaborated on the understandings reached in June. The two agency heads also

agreed to expand the JWG structure set up by the

1987 agreement by adding biomedical life-support systems to the JWG on Space Biology and

Medicine and by creating a Mission to Planet

Earth JWG to concentrate on earth science flight

projects. They added study of a Russian-provided

rendezvous and docking system to the NPO Energia contract signed in June and discussed the flight

of U.S. instruments on a spare lander for the Russian Mars ’94 mission.

7Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December

1990), p. 8.

8 For simplicity, “Russia” is used throughout this chapter to denote the United States’ cooperative partner because the overwhelming majority of U.S. cooperative projects to date are with Russia. Where a general statement is made that does not apply as well to Ukraine, the distinction

will be made clear. Where Kazakhstan is meant, it will be explicitly identified.

9 Text of the 1992 agreement and subsequent implementing agreements are in appendix A.

10 Summary tables describing cooperative activities approved by each of the six joint working groups and under way as of the end of 1994

are in appendix B.

11 This role reversal from the 1984 U.S. proposal for a simulated space-rescue mission seems to have gone unremarked at the time.
48 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Both the astronaut-cosmonaut exchange and

the Mars ’94 agreement were finalized on October

5, 1992, when Administrator Goldin and General

Director Koptev signed agreements on human

spaceflight and Mars ’94 cooperation following

meetings in Moscow.

Cooperation under the JWG structure has proceeded relatively smoothly since the signing of

the 1992 agreement. The first Russian instrument

to fly on a U.S. spacecraft, the KONUS gammaray-burst detector, was launched November 1,

1994, on the U.S. Wind spacecraft, part of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. On December 16, 1994, NASA and RSA

signed an agreement for the reflight of TOMS and

for the flight of the third version of the Stratospheric Aerosols and Gas Experiment instrument

(SAGE-III) on Russian polar-orbiting meteorological satellites. NASA views the Russian commitment to provide the launch, operations, and

supporting science for SAGE, in particular, as a

significant Russian contribution to the U.S. Earth

Observing System (EOS) program. It was also

agreed at the December meeting that Version 0 of

the U.S. EOS Data and Information System

(EOSDIS) will be interconnected with appropriate Russian counterparts.12

In 1993, the proposed cooperation on the Mars

’94 mission was scaled down to the provision of a

single U.S. instrument for each of the two landers,

after the Russian developers of the spacecraft

proved unable to accommodate a third lander on

schedule; subsequently, reportedly because of

budgetary, technical, and production difficulties,

the Mars ’94 launch slipped to 1996. At the June

1994 meeting of the U.S.-Russian Commission

on Economic and Technological Cooperation

(hereafter, for brevity, the Gore-Chernomyrdin

Commission), the principals directed NASA and

RSA to study “Mars Together,” potential cooperative Mars-exploration options involving launches

by each side during the 1998 and 2001 launch windows, and a concept for joint exploration of the

Sun and Pluto, called “Fire and Ice.” At the December 1994 Gore-Chernomyrdin meeting, the

principals decided only to continue joint studies

and “agreed that all such planning should take into

consideration appropriate budgetary and financial

constraints.” 13

The United States and Russia have continued to

play key roles in the multilateral IACG, which is

now occupied mainly with the ISTP Program, and

Russia has joined the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), the most important

multilateral coordinating body for Earth remotesensing-satellite operators. Both countries are

also key players in the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG).

For the most part, U.S.-Russian cooperation

under the JWG structure has followed the established pattern of past NASA international cooperative projects—adherence to principles such as

clean interfaces and general avoidance of technology transfers—but there has been one important

departure. Even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, U.S. officials recognized that some

U.S. subsidy of Russian hard-currency expenses

would be required to keep cooperation on track.

More recently, NASA has found ways to provide

limited injections of hard currency through

writing small contracts for engineering-model

hardware and services such as preparing interfacecontrol documents. NASA program managers

generally believe that cooperation is not currently

possible without such stimuli, but they express a

strong desire to return to the traditional, no-exchange-of-funds partnership model as soon as this

is feasible.

12 Private correspondence from Charles Kennel, NASA Associate Administrator for Mission to Planet Earth, to Ray Williamson of OTA,

Feb. 16, 1995. In his letter, Kennel also noted that NASA will pay the marginal costs for integration and test for the SAGE flight and the TOMS

reflight, expected to total $5 million to $6 million.

13 U.S.-Russian Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation, “Joint Statement on Aeronautics and Space Cooperation,” Dec.

16, 1994, pp. 2-5. See also Peter B. deSelding, “Russian Woes Hampering Mars Project,” Space News, pp. 2, 20, Dec. 19-25, 1994.
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 49

❚ Human Spaceflight and the

International Space Station

Background

In early 1993, President Bill Clinton ordered that

Space Station Freedom be redesigned to reduce

construction and operating costs.14 In response,

NASA formed a redesign team, including members named by its existing partners as well as

NASA and industry participants, which developed a set of three options (A, B, and C) to fit within cost profiles provided by the White House. To

be able to consider potential applications for Russian hardware in the revised design, NASA quietly brought in a small team of senior Russian

engineers to serve as “resources” for the redesign

process, but their inputs to the first phase, in the

spring of 1993, were very limited.

In June 1993, President Clinton selected Option A (a scaled-down modular space station) with

some elements of Option B (the design closest to

Space Station Freedom), and he allowed three

months for NASA’s “transition team” to create a

new, merged design. Again, the existing partners

were involved directly in the redesign process,

and an enlarged team of Russian “consultants”

was much more actively involved than it was in

the spring. On the diplomatic front, a series of

contacts between NASA and RSA over the summer of 1993, and between the two governments,

led to a White House announcement at the end of

the first meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission on September 2, 1993, that Russia and the

United States foresaw Russia joining the space

station partnership.15 As an essential part of the

package, the United States committed to pay $400

million over four years for Russian space hardware, services, and data in support of the joint

spaceflight program leading to the development

of the International Space Station.

On November 1, NASA and RSA agreed on an

addendum to the September 7, 1993, Space Station Program Implementation Plan. The program

set out in the addendum is organized into three

phases. Phase One (1994-97) is fundamentally an

expansion of the program agreed to in the Human

Spaceflight Agreement of October 1992 into a

program of seven to 10 shuttle flights to Mir16 (see

figure 3-3 and photo on page 51), as well as five

medium- to long-duration flights on Mir by U.S.

astronauts. Phase Two (1997-98) involves U.S.,

Russian, and Canadian elements and achieves the

ability to support three people in 1998 with the delivery of the Soyuz-TM crew-rescue vehicle (see

photo on page 52). Phase Three (1998-2002) completes assembly of the station, including European

and Japanese components (see photo on page 53

and figure 3-4).17

In December 1993, a formal invitation to participate in the space station project was issued by

the existing partnership and accepted by the Russians. Also in December, at the second meeting of

the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, the Human

Spaceflight Agreement was amended to provide

for the full Phase One program, and an initial letter

contract was signed to begin implementation of

the $400 million commitment.

Since that time, a series of negotiations with the

Russians and the existing space station partners

has produced significant progress toward a new

set of agreements governing the partnership. In

June 1994, at the third session of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, NASA Administrator

14 For a detailed discussion of the evolution of the current design and Russian participation, see Marcia S. Smith, “Space Stations,” Congressional Research Service Issue Briefs, Washington, DC, October 1994 (updated regularly).

15 Formally, the two governments agreed only on the joint development of a program plan that would be the basis of a U.S. government

decision and consultations with the other space station partners.

16 Shuttle flight STS-60 in February 1994, involving the flight of cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev on a Space Shuttle mission, is formally also

considered part of the Phase One program.

17 The latest published manifest, dated Nov. 30, 1994, shows a total of 44 flights in the four-year construction period, of which 27 are to

be Space Shuttle flights. Those totals do not include flights to rotate crews at the station or to resupply fuel and other consumables.
50 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

SOURCE: David S.F. Portree, Mir Hardware Heritage, Houston, TX, 1994

Goldin and RSA Director General Koptev signed

an Interim Agreement covering initial Russian

participation in the space station. The actual $400

million, fixed-price contract was also signed at

that meeting. Negotiations are under way on a

Memorandum of Understanding with Russia, on

amending the existing Memoranda of Understanding with the other partners, and, in parallel,

on amending the multilateral Intergovernmental

Agreement to include the Russians and to bring it

into conformity with the underlying bilateral

agreements.

The original agreement structure stated that

each partner would receive rights to use the space

station proportionate to its contributions to the

station, that each would pay the costs of its own

assembly and logistics flights, and that the common operations costs would be shared among the
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 51

Artist's conception of U.S. Space Shuttle docked with Mir.

partners in proportion to each partner’s contribution. The agreements envisioned that there would

be a significant net flow of resources to the United

States during the utilization and operations phase,

which might be accomplished either through cash

transfers or (preferably for the partners) through

provision of goods or services. However, the very

large Russian role in the station now includes elements formerly reserved for the United States

(notably, provision of core systems and of transportation services during the assembly phase).

ESA and Japan may become transportation providers as well. Negotiating allocations of space

station resources and contributions to common

operations costs is a challenging task; NASA

hopes to complete the necessary negotiations and

renegotiations during 1995.

Meanwhile, a series of milestones has been

reached successfully in the development of the revised program. In particular, NASA and RSA

reached technical and management agreements

during August-September 1994, including a joint

management protocol and an agreed specification

document for the Russian segment of the space

station. The first major shipments of equipment

for use by U.S. astronauts on Mir were made in the

September-December period, and the first toplevel Joint Program Review was carried out in

Moscow during November, confirming program

milestones for 1995 and beyond. Rockwell In-
52 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Artist's conception of Phase Two of the Intemational Space Station,

ternational delivered the Space-Shuttle-to-Mir

docking mechanism, incorporating key components from RSC Energia, to the Kennedy Space

Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in November

1994. The Shuttle-Mir rendezvous and close-approach mission was successfully completed in

February 1995, a key dress rehearsal for the docking missions to come. Finally, in mid-February,

Lockheed, Khrunichev, NASA, and RSA successfully concluded separate, interlocking negotiations on purchase of the Functional Cargo Block

(FGB) module, which provides guidance, navigation, and control capabilities for the Phase TWO

space station.

Progress has not been entirely smooth, however. Technical and organizational difficulties on the

Russian side have been largely responsible for

causing the scheduled date of the Spektr module’s

launch to Mir to slip from March until May 11,

1995. As a result, the frost U.S. astronaut on Mir

will have use of the equipment aboard for only

about two weeks, rather than two months, as first

anticipated; the next long-duration U.S. flight on

Mir will not occur until March 1996.18 In addition, severe problems with Russian customs clearance for the U.S. equipment involved in the flight

have required the intervention of Vice President

18 Part of the equipment is being launched to Mir on Progress cargo spacecraft instead.
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 53

Artist's conception of Phase Three of the International Space Station.

Gore and premier Chernomyrdin; a customs

agreement was signed at the December 1994

Gore-Chernomyrdin meeting.

The Financial Dimension

NASA has historically conducted international

cooperation on a no-exchange-of-funds basis.

Since 1992, however, foreign policy and national

security interests have led to a significant departure from this precedent in NASA activities with

Russia. The effects of this change on NASA and

on the place U, S.-Russian space cooperation occupies in the overall U.S.-Russian relationship are

discussed in this section.

NASA payments to Russian entities, combined

with directed procurements from Russian sources

under NASA contracts with U.S. industry, will

likely total nearly $650 million over the FY

1993-97 period:

$400 million for space-station-related goods

and services,19

at least $210 million for the initial dockingmechanism purchase and the FGB procurements,

$16 million for two Bion biosatellite flights,

and

at least $10 million in smaller procurements of

goods and services.

vided docking mechanisms after the first one. As of March 1, 1995, only $62.5 million had been disbursed from the $100 million available

in FY 1994; disbursements are made as deliveries of goods or services are received.
54 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Science Power Platform

Photo-Voltaic Arrays

(Russia)

Service Module

(Russia) \

Russian-built

FGB (US)

Thermal Control

System Radiators

(US) .

& Experiments

- Integrated

T \

(Japan) Truss Assy.

(us)

Centrifuge

(us)

(us) Hab Module

(us)

SOURCE National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1994

These payments do not constitute assistance from

NASA to RSA or to Russian space enterprises.

The $400 million NASA-RSA contract covers at

least seven Shuttle-Mir rendezvous and docking

missions and up to 21 months of U.S. astronaut

presence on Mir. NASA expects to gain fundamental experience in joint operations, including

risk reduction, command and control, docking the

shuttle with large structures in space, performing

technology experiments, and executing a joint research program. The contract amount includes

$20 million in support for jointly peer-reviewed

Russian scientists’ proposals in all space-related

disciplines and $25 million toward the cost of the

FGB module being purchased by Lockheed from

the Khrunichev Enterprise for use in the International Space Station. The FGB procurement by

Lockheed, at a cost of $190 million, includes one

unit and related services; NASA and RSA have

agreed that RSA will contribute to NASA, at no

cost, the FGB launch and all services not covered

by the Lockheed contract, with the possible exception of some command-and-control software
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 55

that may be needed.20 The procurements of the

docking mechanism, the Bion flights, and other,

minor goods and services all involve the use of

unique Russian capabilities by NASA at a low

cost compared with the cost of developing them

indigenously.

Nevertheless, no other executive branch

agency is transferring funds to Russia at anything

approaching this rate. U.S. government funds obligated for assistance to Russia through September 30, 1994, total something over $3 billion,21

but over a third of that total is for in-kind goods

(food shipments, principally in FY 1993), and significant funds that were obligated have been lost

because of failure to spend them in time. Of the remainder, almost all have been paid to U.S. consultants and other entities to conduct assistance

activities in Russia. Meanwhile, other non-NASA

executive branch spending in Russia has been relatively minor.22

At the September 1993 Gore-Chernomyrdin

Commission meeting, the United States committed $400 million of the NASA total payments

to Russia when it agreed to involve Russia in the

space station and to conclude an agreement on

Russian access to the commercial space-launch

market, in exchange for Russia’s agreement to terminate its transfer of cryogenic-rocket-engine

technology to India.

NASA funding is very important to the Russian

space program. Inflation, the dramatic depreciation of the ruble, and conflicting data make it difficult to quantify this impact, but one senior RSA

official said that RSA actually received R450 billion from the state treasury during 1994, about

half its appropriation. Arguing for more state

funding, he asserted that the total of all foreign

agreements and contracts “represents just a fourth

of our requirements.”23 However, at an average

exchange rate of R3,000 = U.S.$1.00, the NASA/

RSA contract alone yielded nearly R200 billion

over that period.24

Aside from direct and indirect payments to

Russian entities, NASA is committing significant

budget resources to expenditures in the United

States that are directly related to Russian cooperation. The totals stated by NASA in its FY 1996

budget submission are listed in table 3-1. Each

item identified in the table is contained within

broader program or project line items in the

NASA budget, and some of the amounts in the

table, such as the $100 million per year for “Russian Space Agency Contract,” are included in the

discussion of transfers to Russia above. In addition, the space station expenditures shown are 

20 Interview with Lynn F. H. Cline, Director, Human Space Flight Division, Office of External Relations, NASA Headquarters, Feb. 14,

1995.

21 Office of the Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to the Newly Independent States, Department of State, “Cumulative Obligations of Major

NIS Assistance Programs by Country to 9/30/94.” See also U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation and the Former

Soviet Union, OTA-ISS-605 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1994) for a discussion of nonproliferation-related

U.S. spending programs involving Russia. This discussion includes Department of Defense funding under the Cooperative Threat Reduction

Program.

22 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, op. cit., footnote 21, p. 28. Department of Energy (DOE) joint research programs with

the Russian weapons laboratories are funded at $35 million in the FY 1994 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, while the International

Science and Technology Center (established to help fund Russian military scientists and engineers in civilian work related to their former fields)

is funded at $25 million total, of which very little has been disbursed.

23 Boris Ostroumov, Deputy General Director of the Russian Space Agency, quoted in “Manned Space Program in Imminent Jeopardy,”

Moscow Trud, in Russian, Dec. 10, 1994 (translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service).

24 If anything, this probably understates the impact because by the end of 1994, the exchange rate was approaching R4,000 = U.S.$1.00.
56 I U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

FY 1995 FY 1996 FY 1997 FY 1998 FY 1999

Russian Space Agency contract

Mir missionsa

Space station-related

developments

Space science

Earth science

Space access

Aeronautics

Tracking and data

TOTAL

100.0 100.0 100.0

141.7 102.7 54.3 16.3 0.6

20.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 0.0

14.4 10.1 9.2 12.3 6.2

3.7 3.1 3.3 3.0 3.0

2.7

11.7 3.0

2.3 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.1

296.5 240.8 178.8 33.7 11.9

a Includes payloads and Shuttle/Spacelab support related to Mir and Shuttle-Mir missions

b Does not include pending Lockheed contract costs.

SOURCE. NASA Headquarters.

subsumed within the $2.1 billion/year cap for

space station spending.

PRIVATE SECTOR

U.S. private companies, for the most part, did not

pursue potential business relationships in Russia

or Ukraine until the demise of the Soviet Union.

Since 1991, this situation has been changing, and

cooperative efforts are beginning to bear fruit. In

general, progress has been slow because of differences in business and technical cultures, as well as

residual suspicions and restrictions left over from

the Cold War.

❚ Early Entrepreneurs and Glavkosmos:

Before 1991

During the 1980s, a few small-scale entrepreneurial companies and individuals sought to open the

U.S. market to Soviet launch services and remotesensing imagery, with little success. Meanwhile,

the Soviets formed Glavkosmos in 1985 as a marketing arm of their then-invisible Ministry of General Machine Building. Even earlier, there had

been an abortive Soviet effort to commercialize

the Proton launch vehicle, including requests that

INTELSAT and INMARSAT, two international

communications satellite operators, consider it as

a candidate launch vehicle for their upcoming satellites. In this and subsequent efforts to qualify as

a launch supplier for INTELSAT, however, Glavkosmos was unsuccessful.25 Otherwise, little of

consequence occurred during the late 1980s; one

American firm successfully arranged for the flight

of a small microgravity payload on the Mir Space

Station in 1989, precipitating a brief but heated

U.S. interagency dispute over whether the export

of the experiment hardware had been properly approved. 26

Several factors acted to limit the potential for

private sector space business with the Soviet

Union. First, Soviet secrecy about space-industry

facilities and capabilities discouraged most companies from pursuing business ties; Glavkosmos

25 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Glavkosmos was reconstituted as a “private” company marketing space and other high-technology products and services. Although it continues to operate, the firm is not known to be involved in any of the major cooperative ventures currently under way.

26 Another small payload was flown in 1992 without controversy.
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 57

was too obviously a front organization, and its officials were too abrasive and inexperienced in

business. More important, all exports of space

hardware and related technical data were controlled by the U.S. State Department under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

These regulations identified the Soviet Union and

other Warsaw Pact countries as proscribed destinations, meaning that requests to export ITARcontrolled items to them were automatically

denied unless a waiver of the proscription was approved at a high level in the Department of State,

with the concurrence of other concerned agencies,

most notably the Department of Defense

(DOD).27 Finally, most U.S. firms in a position to

do business in Soviet space goods and services

were heavily dependent on contracts with NASA

and DOD; in the absence of clear, positive signals

from these important clients, most firms chose not

to pursue business ties in the Soviet Union.

❚ Learning to Work Together: U.S. and

Russian Industry

In the period following the breakup of the Soviet

Union, the changed policy environment and the

opening of Russian and Ukrainian enterprises to

business contacts with the West resulted in a flood

of Western aerospace business people to those

countries. Initially, at least, some had hopes of acquiring space technology at “fire-sale” prices.

Many went with authority only to visit, assess,

and report back. The visitors found the Russian

and Ukrainian aerospace sectors beginning slowly

and painfully to abandon generations of secrecy

and to learn Western business methods, while also

confronting the devastating economic effects of

dramatically reduced state contracts, hyperinflation, and a widespread breakdown of supplier and

customer networks.

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization

(SDIO) actually initiated the first major “private

sector” imports of Russian space technology beginning in late 1990, when it sought to import Topaz 2 space nuclear-reactor hardware and “Hall

Effect” spacecraft thrusters (used for attitude control and station-keeping, or keeping the satellite in

its proper orbit). SDIO used private firms as its

purchasing agents for these procurements. Approval of these proposals by the U.S. government

in March 1991, together with the decision to permit INMARSAT to negotiate with Russia for the

Proton launch of a single INMARSAT satellite,

signaled a significant shift in the U.S. government’s attitude toward space trade with Russia.

Progress in developing business relationships

has been slow, in most instances, and the Office of

Technology Assessment (OTA) has not found any

U.S. space enterprise that has yet shown a profit

from its Russian activities. According to press reports and interviews conducted by OTA staff, the

slow pace is attributable to factors on both sides.

After the initial wave of U.S. “tire-kicking” visits,

many Russian organizations felt that further contacts without tangible return were useless and began to reject further discussions unless the visitors

could demonstrate, in advance, that they were prepared to invest substantial hard currency in the

relationship. For their part, the Americans (and

other Western businesspeople, as well) found the

Russians often unwilling to provide financial and

technical information that would have been a routine part of such exploratory exchanges in the

West.28 Even when business interest has been established and negotiations have begun, there have

been serious conceptual and communications

problems. Regulatory, legal, and bureaucratic obstacles on both sides disrupted schedules and

strained relationships. Cultural differences, false

27 Russia and the newly independent states continue to be proscribed destinations on the ITAR today.

28 In part, this apparently reflected simple Russian inexperience; there also appear to have been significant residual security concerns and,

in some instances, personal resistance to being asked to prove technical or managerial capabilities.
58 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

preconceptions, differing negotiating styles, and

simple inexperience were all further complications. And always, there was the underlying political and economic uncertainty.

Nevertheless, U.S. firms are persevering and,

in several areas, are increasingly optimistic about

their prospects for the future.29 The most promising prospects appear to be:

 Marketing Russian and Ukrainian launch services, either from Russia or through innovative

arrangements for launch elsewhere. Lockheed

is the firm most deeply involved, through the

LKE International (Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia) joint venture, but several others, including Boeing, are attempting to develop

prospects involving Ukrainian launch vehicles

and a variety of converted Russian missiles.30

 Introducing Russian launch-vehicle and propulsion technology into U.S. systems through

purchase and/or co-production arrangements.

Aerojet and Pratt and Whitney have each announced activities aimed at replacing the engines of existing U.S. launch vehicles; in

addition it was announced at the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission meeting in June 1994 that

Pratt and Whitney would be working with

NASA to explore the possible application of

tri-propellant-rocket-engine technology developed by NPO Energomash, which might have

application in future single-stage-to-orbit

launch vehicles.

 Marketing Russian remote-sensing-data products and services. Firms including EOSAT,

Worldmap International, and Core Technologies have announced the availability of Russian

optical imagery with spatial resolution as good

as 2 meters, as well as radar data from the Almaz satellites.

 Using joint-venture efforts to apply Russian

materials science and other underlying technologies to U.S. aerospace products. Kaiser

Aerospace and Electronics and McDonnell

Douglas are among the firms pursuing these

possibilities.

 Using in situ Russian human resources in fields

where their capabilities are well-known.

McDonnell Douglas, for example, has established joint research centers in Moscow and

Huntington Beach, California, with the Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the

Russian Academy of Sciences, and it is pursuing a variety of technology and software development efforts.

❚ Lessons

Cooperation to date in both the public and private

sectors (including the experience of the Soviet period, although much more has been possible since

1991) has yielded a rich mix of lessons for the U.S.

participants. OTA sought to collect and evaluate

these lessons both through its November 9, 1994,

workshop and through many interviews with

people participating in cooperative activities. The

following are the most broadly applicable principles that were identified by public and private

sector managers:

1. Although the payoffs can be great, and in some

instances can only be gained through cooperation with Russia, cooperative activities with

Russia are more difficult, take longer, and are,

at this stage, riskier than is governmental

cooperation with NASA’s traditional partners

or cooperation between U.S. companies and

aerospace firms in Europe, Japan, and Canada. In some respects, the situation is comparable to the early stages of those established

29 A table listing representative private sector undertakings that have been reported in the press is in appendix C. Of course, important contacts are probably under way that have not been publicized.

30 Daimler-Benz Aerospace of Germany and the Khrunichev Enterprise have recently announced a joint venture to market the Rockot

space-launch vehicle, which is derived from the SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and can deliver small to medium-sized payloads to low Earth orbit (see Peter B. deSelding, “Rockot Launcher to Go Commercial,” Space News, pp. 3, 6, Feb. 20-26, 1995).
Chapter 3 The Cooperative Experience to Date | 59

relationships, but with a difference: the United

States largely inculcated its space standards

and practices in Western countries by virtue of

its unchallenged leadership position during the

1960s and 1970s, but the Russian space infrastructure is already well-established and likely

to resist changing its practices to conform to

U.S. norms.

2. There are wide linguistic, cultural, and societal

differences between Russians and Americans,

differences that are reinforced by the history of

the past 75 years and the enforced separation

of the U.S. and Russian space communities

since the beginning of the Space Age. At the

same time, technical people of the two sides

tend to share an approach to the solution of

problems in space technology and have a substantial body of common interest and mutual

respect in space science. Several consensus lessons follow from these basic observations:

 Whenever possible, understandings should

be documented in detail, in writing, to avoid

ambiguity. To remove as many misunderstandings as possible at the outset, it is very

worthwhile to develop texts of important

documents in both languages and to

compare them formally and recognize both

as equally authoritative.

 As one OTA workshop participant observed,

Russia lacks settled legal frameworks for

most business relationships, which are taken

for granted in the West. As a result, it is important explicitly to define terms and

establish agreement on the substance of contractual relationships, and not merely acceptance of language. Several workshop

participants emphasized that Russian negotiators are quite willing to undo understandings reached earlier in order to exploit

political and time pressures to achieve their

objectives.

 It is important to establish direct, open relationships and mutual respect based on technical competence. Russian society places

great weight on personal relationships in

business, particularly in the absence of established institutional structures for these

new cooperative ventures. In addition, some

U.S. participants believe that U.S. cooperation with Russia in space science has been

more successful than ESA’s or France’s because, they say, Russian space officials recognize the United States as an approximate

equal, while they regard other countries’

space programs as inferior.

 Russian officials are extremely sensitive to

any implication of condescension from the

West, regardless of their currently weak economic position.31

3. Even during the Soviet period, with plentiful resources and relative political stability, delays

were frequently encountered in first-time scientific missions and original technological developments. Conservatism in schedules is

indicated; as one participant observed, schedules with no margin for slipping deadlines increase the risk of failure.

4. Several workshop participants believe that internal bureaucratic conflict and disorganization are an important source of delay and

disappointment to both sides. They noted that

proposed projects may well involve several

Russian organizations, even if only the lead

agency is represented in negotiations, and that

these interagency relationships are in constant

flux. Reliance on the principal Russian organization to deliver the others whose cooperation is needed can be risky because so little is

31 One participant in OTA’s workshop believes that the legacy of the 1980s has adversely affected current cooperative efforts by feeding

a Russian perception that the United States is not serious about cooperation and seeks to take unfair advantage of Russia’s current, disadvantageous position.
60 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

known about relationships among these organizations or their leaders.32 Workshop participants and others also complained that officials

and organizations on both sides continue to apply anachronistic controls on the transfer of

space hardware and technical data, rather than

acting to encourage the development of normal

business relationships.

TOWARD NORMALIZATION

U.S. government program managers at the OTA

workshop generally agreed that the large transfers

of U.S. public funds to Russia currently being undertaken by NASA should not be continued longer than necessary (for either political or economic

reasons). Several emphasized the desirability of

developing a cooperative relationship with Russia

that is comparable to those with the other major

spacefaring nations.33 Such a relationship would

restore the principle of government-to-government cooperation with no exchange of funds (including an end to directed procurements across

national boundaries). The cooperative element

would be balanced by a vigorous commercial relationship involving an industry-determined mix of

free and open commercial competition, on a reasonably level playing field, and teaming between

U.S. and Russian firms where this makes business

sense to the companies involved.

32 Of course, such problems may be exacerbated when, for example, a project with Russia involves launches from Kazakhstan; the newly

signed Russian-Kazakhstani agreement on the status of Baykonur may alleviate many of these concerns, but its implementation remains to be

tested.

33 One workshop participant believes that the United States should not seek to return to the general principles that govern its other cooperative relationships but should be willing to pursue a pragmatic, case-by-case approach (including fund transfers, as needed) for as long as necessary. This participant also believes that space science cooperation with Russia is dominated by unduly rigid adherence to such principles, and

he praised the space station program’s approach.
Other

Countries’

Space 

 Cooperation

with Russia

his chapter reviews the experience some other countries

have had in space cooperation with the Soviet Union, and

later Russia. It considers what lessons might be learned by

the United States from their experience and addresses

how the intensification of U.S. interactions with Russia in civil

space efforts has affected and might in the future affect cooperative relations between the United States and its traditional partners in Europe, Canada, and Japan.

OTHER COUNTRIES’ EXPERIENCE

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, most of the other

spacefaring nations had only very limited cooperative experience

with the Soviet civil space program. The principal exception to

this general rule is France, which opened space science cooperation with the Soviet Union under President Charles de Gaulle in

1966 and managed to maintain an active program in both robotic

and, later, human spaceflight through the political vicissitudes of

the 1970s and 1980s.1 Since 1992, the European Space Agency

(ESA) has joined France and the United States as Russia’s main

bilateral partners in civil space cooperation.

❚ France and the Soviet Union

On June 30, 1966, French President de Gaulle and Soviet General

Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the open-ended Intergovernmental Accord on Scientific/Technical and Economic Coopera1 See appendix D for a French review of French-Soviet (later Russian) space cooperation. A thorough discussion of French-Soviet cooperation before 1985 can be found in

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S.-Soviet Cooperation in Space: A

Technical Memorandum, OTA-TM-STI-27 (Washington, DC :U.S. Government Printing

Office, July 1985).

| 61
62 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

tion, which emphasized cooperation in the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space. Although

it was intended as an assertion of French independence of action within the Western alliance, the

agreement, and particularly its space component,

soon acquired considerable substantive content.

By the early 1980s, about one-third of the more

than 2,000 space researchers and technicians in

France were working in some way with FrenchSoviet cooperation in space, and the level of

French funding for cooperation with the U.S.S.R.

was not far below that for cooperation with the

United States. This balance was an apparent, and

relatively explicit, objective of the French program.2

Since those early days, French bilateral space

cooperation with the U.S.S.R. has remained concentrated in a few areas, notably:

 astronomy and astrophysics,

 space plasma physics,

 planetary exploration,

 materials processing in space, and

 life sciences.

The French have invested significant resources

in cooperation with the Soviet Union in planetary

exploration. The Vega mission, launched in 1984

to explore Venus and Halley’s Comet, featured

French-built atmospheric balloons that were

successfully released and tracked in the Venusian

atmosphere in 1985. Similar—but more sophisticated—French balloons are intended as part of the

next Russian Mars mission, recently postponed to

1996. Major French instruments also flew on the

Soviet Granat and Gamma missions in 1989 and

1990.

In addition, in 1982, France and the Soviet

Union began a series of cooperative human-spaceflight activities with the flight of Jean-Loup Chretien on Salyut-7. After the flight of Patrick

Baudry, Chretien’s backup, on the U.S. Space

Shuttle in June 1985 (both the United States and

France were apparently seeking balance in this

high-profile field), Chretien flew again in 1988

aboard Mir and conducted the first French EVA

(extra-vehicular activity, or “spacewalk”). Another French “spationaut” flew on Mir in 1992.

In December 1989, the French and Soviets

signed a long-term agreement on human-spaceflight cooperation, calling for a series of flights on

a reimbursable basis, in 1993, 1996, 1998, and

2000. Most recently, plans to shut down Mir in

late 1997 or early 1998 appear to put the later

flights in jeopardy, but negotiations continue,

with the price for the 1996 flight quoted as $13.7

million.3

From a U.S. policy perspective, the most interesting aspect of the conduct of French-Soviet

space cooperation is the difference between the

U.S. and French responses to past changes in the

political environment. While the United States allowed its intergovernmental space agreement

with the Soviet Union to lapse in the wake of the

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the imposition

of martial law in Poland, the French decided to

continue relations. Indeed, Chretien’s Salyut-7

flight in 1982 was the subject of considerable controversy in France, but the issue appears to have

been resolved in favor of continuing cooperation

at a higher or lower profile, depending on the

political environment, rather than suspending

ties.4

Since the French lacked a crewed spacecraft of

their own, as well as the resources for an extensive

flight program in space science, a decision to terminate cooperation with the Soviet Union would

have been comparatively costly. Moreover, as

noted above, independence and balance between

the United States and the U.S.S.R. were important

tenets of French foreign policy in the 1980s. The

French also saw space cooperation as important in

working toward broader objectives such as im2 Ibid., p. 54.

3 Peter B. DeSelding, “French Try for Mir Swan Song,” Space News, p. 21, Jan. 9-15, 1995.

4 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, op. cit., pp. 61-66.
Chapter 4 Other Countries’ Space Cooperation with Russia | 63

proved communications and reduced tensions between the U.S.S.R. and the outside world. Finally,

they appear to have judged that their systems for

controlling and monitoring technology transfers

in the course of cooperative projects were sufficiently effective to obviate any concern about unwarranted transfers of militarily significant

items.5

❚ The European Space Agency

Although there was some scientist-to-scientist

contact between European and Russian space scientists during the 1980s, for all practical purposes,

ESA’s engagement with the Russian Space

Agency (RSA) began in 1991, when, at an ESA

ministerial meeting in Munich, ESA decided to

explore the potential for expanded cooperation in

support of its human-spaceflight objectives. This

decision was confirmed during the subsequent

ministerial meeting in Granada, Spain, in November 1992.

During 1993, ESA and RSA established working groups to focus on five areas of human spaceflight:

1. European astronaut missions on Mir,

2. in-orbit infrastructure,

3. crew and freight transportation vehicles,

4. space-transport-systems technology, and

5. in-orbit servicing.

In addition, in mid-1993, ESA and the Russian

enterprise NPO Energia signed a contract, later

confirmed by an ESA-RSA agreement in October

1994, covering paid flight of European astronauts

on Mir. The first flight, a 31-day mission, took

place in October-November 1994, and a 135-day

flight (Euromir ’95) is scheduled to begin in August. The latter flight will include a spacewalk.

Early technical exchanges concerning reusable

spacecraft for human spaceflight and space suit

design have not been pursued, but with the decision to involve the Russians in the International

Space Station, ESA has begun negotiations with

RSA in two areas directly related to that project:

providing a data-management system for the Russian service module and providing the European

Robotic Arm (ERA) for installation on the exterior of the module (see figure 3-8). Terms of the

Memoranda of Understanding governing these

activities have not yet been finalized, but in return

for providing the ERA, ESA will benefit from its

qualification for and use in space, while the quid

pro quo for the data-management system will

probably be in the form of Russian space hardware, reportedly including the docking mechanism Russia currently uses to attach its station

modules to the Mir core.

ESA is dedicating significant resources to this

cooperative initiative. Its budget for the European

astronaut flights on Mir is $82 million. Within Europe, ESA is spending approximately $60 million

on the data-management system, and it decided in

September 1994 to spend $180 million for the

ERA.6

From November 1992 through the end of 1994,

ESA committed to pay a total of about $81 million

to Russian entities.7 Of this amount, $56.4 million

funds the contract with NPO (now Russian Space

Corporation (RSC)) Energia, which is responsible

for Russian implementation of the astronaut

flights on Mir and payment of any subcontractors.

Another $6 million was approved to reimburse

RSA for the flight of ESA payloads on Russian

Foton recoverable spacecraft.

European budgetary difficulties are putting

strong constraints on ESA’s ability to expand

work with Russia, however. During 1994, ESA

was considering proposals for cooperative development with Russia of a crew-return vehicle

(CRV) for the space station (which could evolve

into a crew-transfer vehicle to carry crews to and

from orbit) and an automated transfer vehicle

5 Ibid., p. 66.

6 Peter B. deSelding, “Ventures with Russia Starting To Bear Fruit,” Space News, pp. 10, 17, Oct. 31-Nov. 6, 1994.

7 Figure provided by Karin Barbance, Russian Desk Officer in the International Affairs Department, ESA Headquarters, Mar. 2, 1995.
64 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

(ATV) upper stage to deliver Ariane 5 payloads to

the station. ESA was reportedly also considering

options for joint development of the CRV with the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA). Recent news reports suggest that ESA

may scale back its contribution significantly and

is not actively pursuing the Russian option.8

EFFECTS OF U.S.-RUSSIAN PACTS

ON OTHER U.S. PARTNERSHIPS

The dramatic expansion in U.S.-Russian space

cooperation since 1992 has taken place in the

broader context of space relations between the

United States and traditional partners. Those relationships have concurrently been undergoing fairly significant change in their own right, as the

United States and the partners all reassess their

space plans in the face of tight budgets and shifting national priorities.9 This section briefly examines the impact of U.S.-Russian developments

in various areas on the United States’ cooperative

relations with other nations and international organizations.

❚ Space Station

Since the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Cooperation in the Detailed Design, Development, Operation, and Utilisation of the

Permanently Manned Civil Space Station and its

companion Memoranda of Understanding in September 1988, the partners have preserved their

cooperation and made significant progress,

though the course has not been smooth.10 As negotiated, those agreements provide for NASA’s

clear preeminence in the program, commensurate

with its provision of the core space station and

supporting infrastructure for all of the partners’

contributions. For their part, the partners had

sought equality in the program’s decisionmaking

process but settled for a commitment by all parties

to seek consensus; final authority, in the absence

of consensus, was reserved to NASA.

Through a series of design reviews and redesigns driven by U.S. budgetary and political

forces, NASA tried, with varying success, to balance its domestic needs with consideration for

those of the partners. In 1989, an internal NASA

design review was initially concealed from the

partners, leading to a stormy consultative meeting

at the governmental level in September of that

year. In subsequent restructuring and redesign exercises, NASA made considerably more effort to

involve and consult with the partners. For their

part, the partners generally accommodated the resulting design changes, but at a price, in terms of

schedule changes and increased costs.

The Clinton Administration’s 1993 decisions

to redesign the space station dramatically and involve Russia in a key role sharply increased tensions in the partnership. From the partners’

perspective, throughout the 1993 redesign and

transition process, the United States failed adequately to consult its partners. When President

Clinton went “over the heads” of the space agencies and wrote to his counterparts in Europe, Canada, and Japan in October 1993, seeking their

support for inviting Russia to join the project, he

further exacerbated the resentment of partner

space agencies. However, if he had not interceded,

it is by no means clear that the space agencies

would have reached agreement on Russian partici8 See Craig Covault, “Europe Faces Critical Decisions on Station Role,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, pp. 22-23, Jan. 16, 1995; and

Peter B. deSelding, “European Outlook Cloudy,” Space News, pp. 8, 10, Feb. 13-19, 1995.

9 A forthcoming OTA background paper, International Collaboration in Large Science and Technology Projects, examines trends in this and

other key areas of large-scale international science and technology cooperation.

10 See Marcia S. Smith, “Space Stations,” Congressional Research Service Issue Brief 93017, Washington, DC, October 1994 (updated periodically). Also see Graham J. Gibbs, Expanding the International Space Station Program Partnership—An International Partner’s Perspective

(presented at the 45th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Jerusalem, Israel, Oct. 9-14, 1994).
Chapter 4 Other Countries’ Space Cooperation with Russia | 65

pation, at least in time for the December 1993 announcement that the United States desired.11

NASA now believes that equilibrium has been

restored in the relationship. Cooperative activities

are proceeding well, relations with partner representatives are cordial in Washington and Houston,

and the negotiations for revised Memoranda of

Understanding and an amended Intergovernmental Agreement, although substantively difficult,

are proceeding relatively smoothly.12

After a series of difficult, ministerial-level decision meetings, ESA announced in 1993 that it

was reviewing the scope and character of its contribution to the International Space Station and set

a decision point in early 1995. Although the ESA

Executive has produced a series of detailed and

varyingly ambitious plans for a redefined space

station commitment, it has not yet decided how to

proceed. France has declared that it will be unable

to reach a decision at the ministerial level until October 1995, seven months after NASA says it must

have ESA’s decision.13 At French and German insistence, the ESA Executive (the administrative

staff in Paris) circulated an “alternative scenario”

to member states early in February that seeks to reduce spending between 1996 and 2000.14

In early 1994, Canada informed the United

States that it would have to withdraw from the

space station program unless a means could be

found to reduce the cost of its contribution. Detailed and painstaking negotiations resulted in an

acceptable restructuring, reducing Canadian costs

by approximately U.S.$550 million and securing

a Canadian recommitment.15

Some of the difficulties in Europe and Canada

result from a general decline in support for space

spending, particularly spending on human spaceflight. There is no doubt, however, that partner resentment over the U.S. management of Russia’s

entry into the program did political harm. More

broadly, the space station experience appears to

have convinced the partners that they should not

enter into such an asymmetrical arrangement

again.16 It is not yet clear whether, or to what extent, this determination will hamper efforts to renegotiate the space station agreements by the end

of 1995, as NASA now plans.

❚ Space Science and Applications

The situation for collaboration in space science

and applications is considerably different from

that for space station collaboration. Reasons for

this difference include:

 There has been a strong tendency toward increasing multilateralism in space science since

the founding of the Inter-Agency Consultative

Group for Halley’s Comet (IACG) in the early

1980s. Russian scientists and managers were

involved from the group’s inception. In remote

sensing, a variety of multilateral mechanisms

has existed since the 1960s and 1970s to coordinate remote-sensing-program plans and policies. In 1993, NASA and the National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

were successful in securing Administration approval for a U.S. initiative to invite Russia to

become a member of the Committee on Earth

11 Gibbs, op. cit., pp. 3-6; Gibbs notes, in particular, that although NASA involved its existing partners in the 1993 redesign and transition

processes, leading to adoption of a redesigned space station, that process did not explicitly anticipate Russian participation. Instead, the United

States and NASA negotiated with the Russians on a bilateral basis, only informing the partners on the eve of the September 1993 meeting of the

Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission meeting.

12 Interview with Lynn F. H. Cline, Director, Space Flight Division, Office of External Relations, NASA Headquarters, Feb. 14, 1994.

13 Peter B. deSelding, “Europe, U.S. Scramble for Station Funds,” Space News, pp. 3, 20, Jan. 16-22, 1995.

14 Peter B. deSelding, “ESA Makes Cuts, Delays to Space Station Pledge,” Space News, p. 3, Feb. 6-12, 1995.

15 Canadian Space Agency press release, June 3, 1994.

16 Gibbs, op. cit., footnote 10, p. 3. In particular, the partners believe that decisionmaking mechanisms that give the United States the last

word are inconsistent with true partnerships.
66 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Observation Satellites (CEOS), a key international body in the field. Current U.S. policy, in

both space science and earth science, is to encourage further Russian integration into worldwide, coordinated activities.

 Russian emergence as a significant player has

not undone existing arrangements, as happened

in the space station program. Indeed, the Russians pioneered, in some respects, the beginnings of multilateral space cooperation through

the science working groups established in the

1980s for their planetary and astrophysics missions, which relied heavily on foreign instruments.

 Programs in these areas generally have a lower

political profile than those in human spaceflight. Although they are no less vulnerable to

the annual budget process, they are less obvious captives to linkage with the overall political climate.

❚ Commercial Relations

In general, business relationships among U.S. and

Russian firms have developed without unduly affecting either side’s relations with third parties in

Europe, Japan, and elsewhere. The one potential

exception to this rule is trade in launch services.

In 1989 and 1993, respectively, the United States

agreed to the entry of China and Russia into the

world market for commercial launch services.17

To guard against market disruption caused by the

entry of nonmarket launch-service providers, the

United States negotiated launch trade agreements

with each country that provided quantitative limits on the number of launches each could provide

and specified pricing controls intended to prevent

artificially low bids.

Recently, the United States has renegotiated its

launch trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China, giving the Chinese a significantly

larger quota and more leeway on price than that afforded the Russians in the 1993 commercial

space-launch agreement with them.18 There have

been hints that the United States may consider lifting the quantitative restriction on commercial

sales of Russian launch services altogether.19

Such an action, in response to Russian and U.S.

urging, could have a major impact in Europe. The

European firm Arianespace is already critical of

what it sees as the United States’ failure to enforce

the price requirements of the 1993 agreement.20

Liberalization or elimination of the U.S.-Russian

agreement might be seen in Europe as a blatantly

anti-Arianespace move by the United States, particularly if NASA and Department of Defense

launches continued to be reserved for U.S. launchers only.

17 Previously, the United States had been able to block such entry by denying export licenses for satellites or satellite components; all commercial satellites built outside the United States included U.S. components, so this restriction was effective.

18 Warren Ferster, “China Wins Big In Launch Deal,” Space News, pp. 1, 20, Feb. 6-12, 1995.

19 “Russia and US May Scrap Commercial Russian Rocket Launch Quota,” Interfax, Moscow, Jan. 27, 1995 (translated by the Foreign

Broadcast Information Service).

20 Warren Ferster, “Russia: Relax Launch Limits,” Space News, Dec. 19-25, 1994, p. 1; Andrew Lawler, “Industry Criticizes U.S. Launch

Agreements,” Space News, p. 3, Oct. 3-9, 1994.
Opportunities for

and Impediments

to Expanded

 Cooperation

oreign policy considerations, together with the budgetary

pressures currently facing the civil space programs of the

United States and of other spacefaring nations, provide a

strong motivation for examining whether expanded space

cooperation with Russia is desirable, in what fields, and on what

basis. Additionally, there is a need to examine more closely the

risks that would go along with such expanded cooperation and

how those risks might be mitigated; this discussion is relevant to

current cooperative programs as well. Finally, this chapter examines the role of the Russian and U.S. governments in civil

space cooperation, particularly regarding control and regulation

of private sector activities.

POTENTIAL FOR EXPANDED COOPERATION1

❚ Launch Vehicles and Propulsion

Although the Clinton Administration’s National Space Transportation Policy2 directs the U.S. government to negotiate and

implement agreements controlling trade in commercial spacelaunch services, it expressly authorizes the use of foreign launch

services on a no-exchange-of-funds basis for cooperative government-to-government programs. The policy also states that “the

U.S. Government will seek to take advantage of foreign components or technologies in upgrading U.S. space transportation sys1 As used in this chapter, the term cooperation encompasses both government-togovernment relationships and private sector ties such as joint ventures, co-production, and long-term supplier relationships.

2 The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy, “Fact Sheet—National

Space Transportation Policy,” Aug. 5, 1994.

| 67
68 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

tems or developing next generation space transportation systems.”

The policy clearly was framed, among other

things, in the knowledge that the greatest strength

of the Russian space program (and the principal

strength of the Ukrainian program) lies in launch

vehicles and associated technologies, particularly

propulsion and rapid payload processing and integration. The availability, robustness, and established reliability of Russian and Ukrainian launch

vehicles, built on large-volume series production

over many years, are potentially major assets for

cooperative civil space activities. The use of those

launch vehicles on a no-exchange-of-funds basis

could permit some missions that would not be undertaken otherwise. Private sector development of

these capabilities could also be a significant economic asset for Russia and Ukraine, but this

dimension is currently limited by Western unwillingness to allow those states full access to the

launch market.

As a practical matter, use of Russian and Ukrainian launch vehicles is being pursued on several

fronts:

 Russian launch vehicles are being extensively

scheduled to provide critical transportation for

the assembly and operation of the International

Space Station.

 The U.S. and Russian governments are discussing the use of Russian launch vehicles in cooperative projects such as planned missions to

Mars and Pluto.

 The Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia joint venture (LKE International) is marketing Proton

launch services internationally, for both geostationary and low-Earth-orbit satellites.

 Boeing is seeking U.S. government approval

for a joint venture with Ukraine’s NPO Yuzhnoye (also known by its Ukrainian name, NPO

Pivdenne),3 RSC Energia, and a Norwegian

builder of offshore oil platforms to market

launch services using the Zenit vehicle.4

 U.S. manufacturers of propulsion and launch

vehicles are pursuing proposals for the use of

Russian propulsion systems, both to re-engine

existing U.S. launchers and to include in proposals for future systems such as the X-33 reusable-launcher demonstration vehicle.

Space station program planners anticipate that

Ukrainian Zenit launch vehicles (with Russian

main engines) will be a key transportation element

in the space station project, and a Russian-Ukrainian agreement is being negotiated to cover the

provision of these and other Ukrainian goods and

services to Russia for its use in the project. The

agreement was expected to be ready for signature

in 1995, but recent press reports suggest that the

negotiations are not going well and that Russia is

seeking to reduce its dependence on Ukrainian

suppliers.5 Meanwhile, the Boeing joint-venture

proposal awaits licensing by the U.S. Department

of State. Press reports indicate that the U.S. government is withholding its approval in part out of

concern for the impact of another new entry in the

commercial space-launch market, and also as leverage to help ensure Ukrainian conformity with

the Missile Technology Control Regime. The regime seeks to deny the transfer of systems capable

3 An umbrella space agreement between the United States and Ukraine was signed November 22, 1994, by Presidents Bill Clinton and Leonid Kuchma. The agreement is very similar to the 1992 U.S.-Russian agreement and is permissive rather than specific. The two Presidents also

announced that NASA and the Ukrainian National Space Agency will prepare recommendations for flight of a Ukrainian payload specialist on

the Space Shuttle (see “Joint Statement on Future Aerospace Cooperation Between the United States and Ukraine,” Office of The Press Secretary, The White House, Nov. 22, 1994).

4 The Zenit uses a highly automated launch-processing system, which could give it a competitive advantage; this Russian innovation could,

in principle, be applied to evolving U.S. systems, as well.

5 Peter B. deSelding, “Russia Ready To Use Ukraine-Built Zenits,” Space News, pp. 1, 21, Oct. 3-9, 1994; “Zenit Rockets To Be Used in

International Space Project,” Kiev Unian (in Ukrainian), Nov. 15, 1994 (translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service); Peter B. deSelding, “Russia Distances Space Program from Ukraine,” Space News, p. 3, Feb. 20-26, 1995.
Chapter 5 Opportunities for and Impediments to Expanded Cooperation | 69

of the long-range delivery of weapons of mass destruction.6

❚ Spacecraft

Russian spacecraft capabilities are mixed. The

fact that the Russians use robust, simple, lowcost, shorter-lived operational systems does not

indicate, as some have argued, that they are necessarily inferior to U.S. designs—simply different.

This difference does mean, however, that it may

not be cost-effective to adapt high-cost, unique

U.S. instrument designs, developed for long-lived

U.S. spacecraft, to fly on Russian operational

spacecraft with a shorter lifetime. Simpler instruments, or instruments that replicate existing hardware, may be a good fit, however, depending on

the cost of adapting them to the new platform.

In the past, the United States has not been able

to anticipate some adaptation costs. For example,

in preparing to fly the Total Ozone Mapping

Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument on a Russian

Meteor-3, the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) initially assumed that the

Russian satellite included a mass data storage subsystem, as is standard in U.S. satellites. Instead,

NASA learned that the Russian satellite did not

have this capability, which meant that NASA had

to build and fly, for the first time, a solid-state

memory unit dedicated to TOMS data. In addition, NASA learned that Russian meteorological

satellite integration facilities did not have “clean

room” capabilities for protecting sensitive instruments from contamination; because the TOMS required such handling, NASA provided a portable

“clean room” for the TOMS integration.7

Russian scientific spacecraft present somewhat

different issues. Some, such as the Luna and Venera planetary probes, were robust and resilient designs. Others, notably the two ill-fated Phobos

spacecraft, both of which failed after launch in

1988, were not.8 Some U.S. spacecraft specialists

attempting to understand Russian spacecraft designs have had difficulty with the withholding of

specific design information by the spacecraft

manufacturers—at least in part a residuum of Soviet-era secrecy and bureaucratic compartmentalization, as well as a reflection of the Russians’

perception that the design information might have

commercial value.

Maintenance of schedule on new-design scientific spacecraft has also been a Soviet (and now a

Russian) weakness; historically, the Russians

have been much more successful at producing a

series of spacecraft once a design is in series production. The current delay in completing the Mars

’94 spacecraft, for example, reportedly results as

much from technical problems as financial shortfalls.9

Mir and Mir-related spacecraft (such as the

Functional Cargo Block (FGB) and other major

Russian components of the space station) represent a special case. On the one hand, Russian experience in human spaceflight is unmatched, and

Mir systems, although not technologically as sophisticated as systems being planned in the West

for use on the space station, are mature and well

tested. On the other hand, the FGB has not flown

in the form that will be required for the space station, and delivery-schedule problems have been

common during Mir’s lifetime—the Spektr and

6 See, e.g., Warren Ferster, “U.S. Eyes Zenit Warily,” Space News, pp. 1, 28, Dec. 12-18, 1994.

7 From an unpublished interview with George Esenwein, NASA Program Manager for the TOMS/Meteor-3 flight, 1991.

8 One actually failed due to an erroneous command from the ground, but it was observed at the time that the spacecraft lacked fail-safe provisions that might have enabled controllers to save the mission.

9 Frank Morring, Jr., “NASA Applies New Philosophy To Meet Old Goals in Mars Exploration,” Aerospace Daily, p. 111, Oct. 21, 1994.
70 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Priroda modules, for example, were originally

scheduled for delivery in the late 1980s, then in

1992, but will not reach Mir until this year.10

As discussed in chapter 2, there are basic differences in spacecraft and instrument design philosophy between the U.S. and Russian programs,

which can make designing and implementing interfaces between U.S. and Russian hardware difficult. U.S. systems have tended to be expensive,

complex, high-performance, long-lived, heavily

ground-tested, one- or few-of-a-kind designs. The

Russian approach, on the other hand, emphasizes

relatively low-cost, simple, moderate-performance systems that are flight-tested and put into

series production, with the expectation that they

will need to be replaced on orbit in a comparatively short time.11

❚ Instrumentation

Russian scientific spacecraft, particularly during

the 1980s and early 1990s, relied heavily on foreign instrumentation.12 Western instrument

technology is generally acknowledged to be superior. On the other hand, the Soviet Union had

outstanding success in such technological areas as

automated sample return (the Luna series), automated roving vehicles (the Lunokhod), and the series of Venera landers in the high-temperature,

high-pressure environment of the Venusian surface. Other instruments and components with military applications or ancestry (such as the Vega

imaging system, which used a Soviet military

charge-coupled-device (CCD) array in a Hungarian-designed camera with French optics) have

been very successful, as well. Russian militaryderived remote-sensing systems, particularly

those using photographic film, also produce excellent results. Radar-imaging systems with a

similar heritage may be another asset, and there

are reportedly plans to commercialize high-resolution, digital optical-imaging systems in the near

future.

❚ Human Resources

According to NASA officials and other observers,

Russian scientific and engineering talent represents a great strength. Russian capabilities in mechanical engineering, software development for

science and engineering, and science theory are

excellent.13

 “Brain drain” represents a major potential

problem for Russia, as the best (or best-known)

specialists are offered opportunities to leave for

jobs outside Russia or in other fields. One reason

for the U.S. government to support programs that

stress in situ employment of such people is to

counter such losses of talent, both to stem potential proliferation of militarily relevant know-how

abroad and to encourage economic development

and defense conversion at home.14

❚ Other Capabilities

Russian deep-space communications assets—notably, the 70-meter-class antennas at Yevpatoria

10 A launch schedule for 1995 Shuttle-Mir activities, including launch of the two modules, was signed by Russian Space Agency (RSA)

General Director Yuri Koptev and NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin at the December 1994 meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission.

This came after a late-1994 announcement of a two-month slip in the Spektr launch date, which seemed to threaten the scientific return on the

investment in NASA astronaut Norman Thagard’s visit to Mir, beginning in March 1995.

11 Some observers have suggested that these differing design philosophies also reflect fundamental systemic differences in approach to

technology. In this view, capitalist firms tend to look for new technological solutions and invest heavily in research and development, while

Soviet (now Russian) entities place a lower value on innovation and seek to make the best (often clever) use of existing technology rather than

take the risk of developing something new.

12 Much of the major instrumentation on the Vega and Phobos missions, for example, was of Western European origin.

13 An early initiative under the 1987 space agreement was the exchange of scientists between the science teams of various missions, including Phobos, Magellan, Mars Observer, and Cassini.

14 See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union, OTA-ISS-605 (Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office, September 1994), pp. 62-66, and chapter 6 of this report.
Chapter 5 Opportunities for and Impediments to Expanded Cooperation | 71

(actually in Crimea, Ukraine, but controlled by

Russia) and Ussuriysk—could provide a useful

complement to the capabilities of NASA’s Deep

Space Network, particularly in times of extremely

high workload such as during the Galileo encounter with Jupiter beginning in December 1995. In

1992, the first NASA contract awarded to a Russian entity involved feasibility studies of such

complementary uses, which demonstrated that using the Russian antennas would be of some modest value. Negotiations broke down, however,

when NASA’s Russian counterparts demanded a

price for the use of the antennas that was much

higher than NASA was prepared to pay. Discussions were broken off at that point, in 1993, and

NASA has since developed and implemented

other plans to handle the expected workload.15

Russian capabilities in advanced materials offer a potential for commercial development that

has not, so far, been realized. U.S. engineers have

explored the use of materials such as aluminumlithium alloy, titanium, and carbon-carbon composites on U.S. spacecraft and launch vehicles.

Kazakhstan has significant production capacity

for beryllium, but a joint-venture project to exploit this capability, which was launched soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has

achieved only limited results.16

RISKS AND RISK MANAGEMENT

Clearly, civil space cooperation with Russia

involves risks—some that are common to cooperation with the United States’ traditional cooperative partners and some that are unique to

Russia. This section characterizes those risks and

discusses some options that managers in both the

United States and Russia might adopt for managing them.

❚ Risks

The programmatic benefits of international space

cooperation are offset, to some degree, by:

 an increment of technical risk (presuming that

the international partner’s technical capabilities are not as well known as one’s own, or that

new developments are required);

 added management complexity; and

 exposure to additional political risk, if only because the needed budgets must survive two or

more political systems rather than only one.

Generally, NASA and its traditional partners have

judged these risks worth taking.17

In the case of cooperation with Russia, the picture is somewhat more complex, and additional

risk factors are clearly present. These additional

factors include:

 Russian political and economic uncertainties

on the most fundamental level, which cast

doubt on whether (or when, at least) commitments will be honored, whatever the intentions

of the parties.

 The risk of “reverse linkage,” in which strains

in other aspects of the U.S.-Russian relationship adversely affect cooperative space projects

(this has happened before, most clearly in

1982, when the government-to-government

space agreement was allowed to lapse to express U.S. ire over the imposition of martial

law in Poland).

 Russian systemic immaturity, that is, the substantial lack of a settled legal and institutional

framework within which cooperation can go

forward in a relatively predictable fashion.

 Exacerbated programmatic uncertainties, deriving from limited cooperative experience and

30 years’ mutual isolation.

15 Interview with Charles Force, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Communications, Dec. 22, 1994.

16 See appendix C.

17 The overall record in high-technology cooperation with U.S. friends and allies is distinctly mixed, principally because of institutional

mismatches (e.g., annual funding in the United States versus multiyear funding in other countries). See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology

Assessment, Arming Our Allies: Cooperation and Competition in Defense Technology, OTA-ISC-449 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, May 1990).
72 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

 Reliance on the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan, with its attendant political and infrastructural uncertainties.

 Problems of communication and understanding, again derived from a lack of common experience and from cultural factors.

❚ Risk Management

Political and economic uncertainties in Russia

(and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union) present particular difficulties for risk management in

civil space cooperation, as described in chapter 2.

During the Office of Technology Assessment’s

(OTA’s) November 9, 1994, workshop, “Civil

Space Cooperation with the Former Soviet

Union,” several participants expressed doubt that

the deteriorating overall condition of the Russian

aerospace sector will permit it to deliver on the

commitments to space cooperation being made by

the Russian government. The Ukrainian economy, including its small aerospace sector, is in even

worse condition than Russia’s. Under these circumstances, it is extraordinarily difficult for U.S.

program managers to decide how much to invest

in hedging against the Russian (or Ukrainian)

partner’s default. The extent of such hedging is

likely to be limited by available resources on the

U.S. side, but some increment of confidence could

be gained through further systematic analysis of

post-1991 trends in the Russian aerospace sector.

Even assuming that broad political and economic stability can be maintained and that the

aerospace sector (or key elements of it) does not

collapse, it still appears certain that the sector, including the enterprises that support civil space activity, will continue to be severely underfunded,

undersupplied, and hard-pressed to retain its

skilled personnel. Recently, senior Russian Space

Agency (RSA) officials have warned publicly that

the Russian human spaceflight program is in imminent jeopardy, although this undoubtedly reflects some degree of posturing for domestic

political effect.18

The Russian government response could be—

as it has been in science and technology more generally—to insist on “maintaining a broad front of

research... [forcing] cuts on a random basis, without any rational decisions about what is needed

for economic development or military security.”19 To the extent that the Russian authorities are

unable or unwilling to establish priorities, Russian enterprises that are key to particular cooperative space projects with the United States will be

more-or-less equally at risk across the board.

Alternatively, RSA could decide to set clear

priorities among space activities on the basis of

their economic or operational value and to suspend support to those that fall too far down the list.

Such a decision was made early in the post-Soviet

period, when RSA funding was terminated for

both the Buran space shuttle and the Energia

heavy-lift launch vehicle. Deeper cuts may now

be under way, judging by the economic problems

currently facing the Russian Mars program and

the further delay in the Spectrum-X mission.20

The U.S. public and private sectors can, of course,

influence these decisions over priorities, as they

have through procurements for the space station

program and joint commercial ventures such as

LKE International.

Russian behavior since 1991 apparently reflects both tendencies. Even though the decisions

to stop funding the Energia and Buran programs

were made at the highest levels of the government,

18 See, e.g., “Manned Space Program in Imminent Jeopardy,” Trud, Moscow, p. 2, Dec. 10, 1994, in which senior RSA officials warn that the

Russian piloted space program “could be terminated in late February 1995” unless more funding is found. The article was published just before

the December 15-16, 1994 meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission and as the Russian State Duma was debating the 1995 state budget,

which suggests a tactical motivation for emphasizing the negative.

19 Harley Balzer, Some Thoughts on S&T Cooperation with Russia: Problems of Communication and Perception (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in press).

20 Peter B. deSelding, “Russian Woes Hampering Mars Project,” Space News, p. 1, Dec. 19-25, 1994.
Chapter 5 Opportunities for and Impediments to Expanded Cooperation | 73

a year or more passed before Russian officials

ceased sending confusing signals in the press

about the future of these programs.21 Similarly,

Russian officials delayed postponing the Mars ’94

mission until the last possible moment, even

though well-documented rumors of the budgetary

and technical causes of the delay were circulating

a year earlier.22

Russian and U.S. program officials could reduce risk from this missed communication to

some extent by communicating privately and explicitly with each other about programmatic priorities and funding decisions as they are being

made (or as soon as possible thereafter). On occasion, with other partners, such “early warning”

has worked extraordinarily well. In 1990-91, for

example, NASA’s cancellation of the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission, which

had significant European (particularly German)

involvement, was privately signaled well in advance and has had little lasting political impact.

On the other hand, in 1981, the United States gave

no warning to the European Space Agency (ESA)

before canceling its spacecraft in the International

Solar Polar Mission, and European confidence in

U.S. reliability as a partner was severely shaken.23

Frank and open communication with the Russians, although currently more difficult to achieve

than such communication with ESA, could prove

effective, at least in the non-space-station areas of

the relationship.

The problem of “reverse linkage” is more complex and, from the programmatic perspective,

may be less tractable than problems of communication. Space cooperation, in general, and space

station cooperation, in particular, are highly visible, politically significant components of the

overall U.S.-Russian relationship. Vice President

Al Gore and Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin are personally engaged, through showcasing

space cooperation in their commission’s activities. At the same time, the decisions to involve

Russia in the space station program, to permit

Russian entry into the commercial launch- services market, and to make significant purchases in

Russia as part of the new relationship were clearly

influenced in large part by the desire to secure

continuing Russian adherence to the Missile

Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The GoreChernomyrdin Commission meeting planned for

June 1993 was postponed because of a failure to

reach agreement on this issue; at their September

1993 meeting, the two officials announced agreements on MTCR, Russian participation in the

space station, and the commitment to spend $400

million on a NASA-RSA contract.24

Some observers believe that the linkage between Russian missile-technology-proliferation

behavior and space cooperation that has been

created in this way could ultimately pose a greater

threat to the space station than do technical or programmatic considerations; others believe that the

space station relationship is so important to Russia that it provides a strong motivation for continued MTCR compliance.25 The high profile

21 Part of the confusion may be due to the emergence of space enterprises with some independent ability to keep systems and projects alive on

their own. RSC Energia claims that it has continued to maintain and market the Energia launch vehicle (private correspondence from Jeffrey

Manber, Managing Director, North American Operations of RSC Energia, to Ray Williamson, OTA, Feb. 3, 1995).

22 Ibid.

23 CRAF was paired with the Cassini mission to Saturn, using many of the same spacecraft components and systems that Cassini did, to save

money. When it became clear that the cost of the combined program would exceed congressional guidelines, CRAF was canceled while work on

Cassini continued. For a discussion of the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM) cancellation, see U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, International Cooperation, OTA-ISC-239 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, July 1985), p. 384.

24 See Marcia S. Smith, Space Activities of the United States, CIS, and Other Launching Countries/Organizations: 1957-1993, 94-347 SPR

(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, March 1994 (updated periodically)), pp. 36-39.

25 See, e.g., Marcia S. Smith, “Space Stations,” Congressional Research Service Issue Briefs, Washington, DC, October 1994 (updated periodically), pp. 8-9, 16.
74 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

afforded the space station in the overall cooperative relationship may also afford it a degree of

protection; from this vantage point, the space station may be affected less by negative developments in the overall relationship than are other,

lower-profile aspects of space cooperation, including private sector activities.26

Businesspeople interviewed by OTA generally

find systemic problems in Russia to be a significant brake on developing business relationships.

The Russian institutions and legal system, developed under the Soviet regime and undergoing rapid change to fit the new situation, do not yet

provide an appropriately stable business environment; observers have described the situation in

Russia as resembling that in the United States during the 19th century’s “robber baron” era. Sudden,

unexplained changes in basic business law and

regulations are commonplace, as are corruption

and, increasingly, crime. These factors have not

deterred U.S. aerospace firms from attempting to

establish business relationships in Russia, but

they have undoubtedly impeded progress in some

cases. The most effective counter to this impediment, most of those interviewed suggest, is to obtain sound specialist advice, expect delays and

reverses, and wait out the evolving system.

Relative mutual unfamiliarity, mistrust, and the

resulting additional programmatic uncertainty are

the inevitable consequence of 30 years of enforced

isolation of the two national space programs from

one another. For their part, U.S. officials and businesspeople express frustration at their inability to

penetrate beyond the largest, best-known of Russian space enterprises; five years ago, they were

largely unaware that these enterprises existed.

Many Russian managers and officials carry with

them entrenched habits of bureaucratic secrecy

and tend to resist requests for information, even

when those requests have sound business justification and do not jeopardize trade secrets or sensitive technology. Only time and effort on both sides

(and, particularly, people in place in each other’s

establishments) can gradually lower these barriers

to the point reached with the United States’ traditional cooperative partners; the incorporation of

Russian capabilities squarely in the critical path of

space station development will necessarily accelerate this process, but at the probable cost of some

expensive misunderstandings along the way.27

The sheer scale and complexity of the cooperative arrangements with Russia that are in place

today for the International Space Station make it

unprecedentedly difficult to insulate the program

from disruption at any affordable cost. NASA is

making a concerted effort to plan for such disruptions, but it acknowledges that a Russian delay or

default, depending on when it occurred and what

elements of the space station were affected, could

cause significant cost or schedule penalties. Moreover, as one observer has suggested, Russian participation may, in fact, be in two critical paths

—programmatic and political. Placing Russia in

the programmatic critical path means that the program will incur significant delay and resultant increased costs if Russian components are delivered

late or not at all. Although very substantial, this

risk is at least broadly quantifiable, and from this

standpoint, Russian participation is not necessarily essential to the program. The “political critical

path” concept addresses whether the United States

would be willing to continue the project at all,

without Russian involvement, in the current budgetary environment. Those supporting this analysis

believe that continuation of the International

26 Russia’s unsettled politics make choosing among these hypotheses very difficult.

27 For example, James T. McKenna, “Mir Docking Device Readied for Rendezvous,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, p. 72, Sept. 19,

1994, describes difficulties in reaching agreement on the safety certification of the Russian-built docking module for the Shuttle-Mir program.

On the other hand, the successful accommodation reached between the two programs, permitting the February 1995 Shuttle-Mir rendezvous to

continue despite Russian concerns about a leaking Shuttle thruster, demonstrates what can be accomplished when the stakes are high enough.
Chapter 5 Opportunities for and Impediments to Expanded Cooperation | 75

Space Station program depends on continued

Russian participation.28

U.S. officials have focused a great deal of concern on the future viability of the Baikonur launch

site, or cosmodrome, which is essential to Russia’s participation in the space station, as well as to

the commercial use of the Proton launch vehicle

for commercial launches. On December 10, 1994,

Russian Premier Chernomyrdin and Kazakhstani

Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin signed

what appears to be a definitive agreement for the

long-term lease of Baikonur to Russia. Earlier, in

October 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree that seemed to resolve internal Russian government differences over the continued

maintenance and funding of the cosmodrome. If

these measures are implemented and if the resources are made available for restoring the infrastructure at Baikonur and in the supporting city of

Leninsk, this concern could recede; first reports

are encouraging.29

Problems of communication and understanding have their roots both in inherent cultural differences and in the legacy of 75 years of Soviet

experience. One participant in OTA’s November

1994 workshop declared that “although things are

changing very slowly, the most realistic assumption is that the system and attitudes have not

changed at all.”

U.S. officials and businesspeople emphasized

several keys to controlling such risks:

 Make use of the best available expertise in Russian business law and practices, both to structure relationships correctly and to avoid

surprises as much as possible.

 Invest in high-quality interpreting and translating.

 Never assume a common understanding of

terms and concepts; when in doubt, spell them

out.

 Find out who has the authority to make the

needed decisions; many decisions go straight

to the top.

 Avoid postures or assumptions of superiority.

Particularly in technical areas, mutual respect

for capabilities and achievements is critical.

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

This section reviews the roles of government (or,

more properly, the U.S. and Russian governments) in civil space cooperation between the

United States and Russia. The same observations

apply, as well, to cooperation with other states of

the former Soviet Union.

❚ Governments as Actors

Historically, NASA has resisted “umbrella” space

agreements between the United States and other

countries and between itself and other space agencies, preferring instead to construct relationships

based on a series of individual, self-contained

project-level agreements. NASA’s rationale for

this position is that umbrella agreements tend to

create pressures to make projects cooperative

whether or not the substantive basis for such projects exists.

This pattern has been broken with the Soviet

Union, China, and other countries, including,

most recently, Ukraine. In each case, the political

symbolism of the umbrella agreement was judged

to be such that agency interests were overridden.

The current relationship with Russia carries this

mutual coupling to a new level of intensity.

28 Kenneth S. Pedersen, Research Professor of International Affairs, Georgetown University, private correspondence with Ray Williamson,

OTA, Feb. 13, 1995.

29 “Working Conditions at Baikonur Improve Following Kazakh Agreement,” Aerospace Daily, p. 140, Dec. 30, 1994. In late February

1995, a NASA team, returning from work at Baikonur on preparations for launch of the Spektr and Priroda modules, reported that conditions on

the spaceport itself were totally satisfactory and that hotel accommodations in Leninsk, except for an absence of hot water, were adequate. NASA

also notes that the Russians continue to launch from Baikonur twice each month. On the other hand, one OTA workshop participant questions

whether Russia will be able to afford both to maintain the spaceport and to arrest the deterioration of Leninsk.
76 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

A second tenet of NASA policy toward international cooperation has been that each side should

bring to the venture the financial resources needed

to carry out its side of the bargain. The fundamental rationale for this approach is that mutual programmatic interest and priority is best ensured

when each party pays its own way and, secondarily, that spending taxpayer dollars abroad is politically risky. Historically, NASA has not opposed

international teaming between its contractors and

those in cooperating countries; indeed, such teaming has often been needed for the foreign partner to

deliver its contribution. Occasionally, as in the

case of the space station project, NASA has discouraged its contractors from pursuing such teaming agreements until the governments involved

have put the fundamental decisions in place, but

the private sector relationships have then followed

quickly. Today, for example, U.S. firms and counterparts in Canada, Europe, and Japan have entered into space-station-related contracts and

other agreements valued at over $200 million.

Again, the U.S.-Russian space station relationship has broken new ground; in addition to Russian contributions on the usual no-exchangeof-funds basis, direct NASA payments to RSA

and directed procurements by NASA contractors

from Russian suppliers will total close to $650

million over four years. As discussed in chapter 3,

these payments serve important foreign policy

goals, although NASA argues that they are also

good value and a practical necessity, enabling

cooperation to continue during Russia’s difficult

economic transition.

❚ Governments as Regulators

Historically, U.S. export controls were a highly

effective and nearly total block to space trade with

the Soviet Union; Russia and the other former Soviet republics remain on the list of proscribed

countries in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), meaning that the Secretary of

State (or his designee) must grant a waiver before

any export of goods covered by those regulations

can take place.

In 1993, partly in recognition of the end of the

Cold War, the United States revised the ITAR

Munitions List, placing almost all civil space

hardware (except for launch vehicles and

associated technology, remote-sensing satellites,

and communications satellites and components

with significant military utility) under the control

of the Department of Commerce. Significantly,

however, detailed design and manufacturing information on all space hardware and software remains on the Munitions List.

NASA has negotiated with the Departments of

State, Defense, and Commerce a blanket data-export authorization for the space station project,

which permits the export of all interface and specification data necessary for Russia to carry out its

responsibilities, on the same basis that such data

are exported to the other partners. Other cooperative activities, such as the export of instruments

and related data for flight on Russian spacecraft,

continue to require case-by-case authorization.

Private sector activities are still subject to ITAR

in most cases because, almost without exception,

the first stage of developing a joint venture or

other cooperative relationship involves an “export” of technical data for the purpose of initiating

substantive discussions. During the OTA workshop, several participants from the private sector

complained that the process continues to place an

onerous burden on their activities, often including

a requirement that their negotiations be monitored

by Defense Department personnel. Others noted

that the U.S. government uses the licensing process to pursue its policy goals in areas such as

space-launch trade and missile-technology proliferation, holding back on license approvals until

appropriate agreements are obtained, as in the case

of Boeing’s proposed joint venture to market a

Ukrainian launch vehicle’s services. Others commented that in many cases, the problem appeared

to be less the substance of the regulations themselves than the “old Cold Warrior” attitudes they

ascribe to the officials and military officers involved.
Chapter 5 Opportunities for and Impediments to Expanded Cooperation | 77

Although information is more fragmentary and

Russian institutions in the field of technologytransfer control are less well-developed than they

are in the United States, there have been some indications of impediments to expanded cooperation at work in Russia, too. Complaints about

Russia’s selling off its technical birthright for pennies on the dollar have been common in the Russian press. One firm reported that an important

deal was being delayed because of lack of approval for transfer of the technology involved by

a Russian interagency group concerned with

technology security. Because of extensive commonality between Russian remote-sensing systems and their military counterparts, security

concerns have imposed considerable overhead on

efforts to market remote-sensing data products in

the West, some businesspeople report.

Another important regulatory area is the field

of space-launch trade. As mentioned above, one of

the most important motivations for Russian agreement to abide by the MTCR was U.S. willingness

to allow Russian space-launch services to compete to launch U.S.-built commercial satellites.

Competitive issues aside, potential earnings from

commercial launch sales may be important to

keeping Russian rocket designers employed at

home rather than offering their services to Third

World missile programs. The current agreement,

signed in September 1993, is designed to be transitional and allows Russia a total of only eight

geostationary orbit launches through the year

2000. However, by the end of 1994, LKE International had reportedly won 15 firm contracts or options worth more than $1 billion and was expected

to fill the Russian quota with firm launch contracts

during 1995.30 The Clinton Administration is

coming under pressure from Lockheed, U.S. satellite manufacturers, and the Russians to expand

the quota, particularly in light of the conclusion in

January 1995 of a much more liberal agreement

between the United States and China. Meanwhile,

U.S. launch-vehicle manufacturers and Europe’s

Arianespace complain that the current agreement’s price provisions, in particular, are not being adequately enforced, and those companies

oppose any further market share for Russia.31

30 “Lockheed Signs Up 15 Launches for Proton Venture,” Aerospace Daily, p. 390, Dec. 20, 1994. Only very limited information on the

financial arrangements between the partners is publicly available, but Lockheed’s investment to date has apparently been modest compared with

the potential revenues involved.

31 Andrew Lawler, “U.S. To Begin Launch Talks with China, Russia,” Space News, p. 1, 20, Sept. 12-28, 1994.
Domestic

Impact

and

Proliferation

Concerns

INTRODUCTION

ome observers express concern that U.S.-Russian commercial cooperation might cost U.S. aerospace jobs,

erode the country’s space-technology base, and undercut

competitiveness of U.S. companies by transferring sophisticated technology to a foreign competitor. In fact, the costs of

cooperation will have to be balanced against the potential benefits, some of which may extend well beyond any specific project.

For example, U.S. officials are deeply concerned about the proliferation of ballistic-missile technologies to developing countries.

Russia is a potential source of missiles, components, and expertise, whose transfer could benefit a country trying to develop its

own ballistic-missile capability.

A combination of economic incentives and economic sanctions might be effective in curtailing the sale of hardware useful

in the development and deployment of ballistic missiles, and it

might help to keep the rocket scientists, whose expertise is an essential part of a working ballistic-missile program, from leaving

Russia to work for a developing nation that would pay well for

their services. A collapsing aerospace industry, with massive layoffs, dwindling salaries, and no jobs for young scientists and

engineers who are just starting out, puts great pressure on employees to seek greener pastures outside Russia. Of particular

concern are those scientists who would aid states, such as Iran,

that are actively hostile to the United States. Although emigration

restrictions seem to have been effective in preventing some at-

| 79
80 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

tempts at expatriation by aerospace engineers,1

one long-term solution to the “brain drain” problem is a stable, viable Russian aerospace industry.

This chapter summarizes some of the issues

that come into play in a consideration of future

U.S.-Russian cooperation.

DOMESTIC IMPACT

The effect on the U.S. aerospace industry of Russia’s entry into the international space-launch

market will depend on how the United States decides to structure commercial cooperation with

the Russians and on which part of the industry

attention is focused. On the one hand, access to

different and up-to-date technologies, production

and processing methods, and cheaper hardware

could make the U.S. aerospace industry stronger

in an ever more competitive world market for

space-related services. On the other hand, cooperative arrangements could also lead to unwanted

technology transfer, strengthening of a competitor, loss of domestic production jobs, and a weakening of U.S. capabilities because of dependence

on a foreign source.

The United States is in the process of deciding

how to evolve its space technology so that it can be

as efficient as possible in meeting the domestic

need for access to space and in competing in the

international space-launch-services market.2 Because the requirements of the Soviet/Russian

space program have historically been different

from those of the U.S. program, Russia has developed systems with different operational and

design characteristics. Access to Russian technological innovations could offer U.S. decisionmakers a wider range of design possibilities from

which to choose, some of which have already been

tested and implemented by the Russians. Some

elements of their aerospace industry that might

enhance U.S. capabilities are automated launch

capabilities, less expensive hardware, advanced

materials and materials processing, computational methods, and technical expertise.3

❚ U.S. Job Market and Industrial Base

The current U.S.-Russian agreement on international trade in commercial space-launch services

seeks to prevent Russia from providing spacelaunch services at prices more than 7.5 percent below “the lowest bid or offer by a commercial space

launch service provider from a market economy

country.”4 It also limits the number of principalpayload5 launches that the Russians can sell on the

international market to eight6 between now and

the year 2000. Both of these quantitative limits reflect an attempt to protect domestic providers of

medium- to heavy-lift launch services from encountering unfair competition from the Russian

1 In December 1992, more than 50 Russian rocket scientists were stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. They had been recruited by

North Korea with the promise of salaries much higher than they could command in Russia, according to one report (U.S. Congress, Office of

Technology Assessment, Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union, OTA-ISS-605 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1994), pp. 32-33, 643). The report goes on to point out, “In spite of the fact that the arrest has a positive aspect, reinforcing the belief that

the Russian authorities are alert to foreign efforts to recruit or corrupt their specialists, there is also a negative aspect: the event demonstrates an

active, advanced effort by a state to gain technologies controlled by an international nonproliferation regime.”

2For a discussion of the objectives and possible effects of the Clinton Administration’s Nation Space Transportation Policy, see U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The National Space Transportation Policy: Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office), forthcoming, spring 1995.

3 Chapter 5 presents a more detailed catalogue of Russian capabilities that could be useful to the U.S. aerospace industry.

4 “Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation Regarding International Trade in Commercial Space Launch Services,” 1993, p. 8.

5 A principal payload is a telecommunications satellite or, in the absence of a telecommunications satellite, any other spacecraft or combination of spacecraft.

6 This does not include the scheduled launch of an INMARSAT 3 satellite on a Russian Proton booster. The payloads referred to are commercial payloads; no limit is placed on the number of payloads that can be launched with either the Russian or U.S. government as the customer.
Chapter 6 Domestic Impact and Proliferation Concerns | 81

aerospace industry, which is heavily subsidized

by the Russian government, from the top-level

manufacturer down through all lower-tier suppliers. There is also excess capacity in the Russian

aerospace industry, dormant now, that could presumably be brought into play if sufficient demand

develops. The overall effect is that the Russian

aerospace industry, if not constrained, might be

able to meet a large demand for launch services at

prices much lower than U.S. firms could offer.

The U.S. aerospace industry is made up of different segments with differing needs, which complicates the attempt to predict the effect on jobs of

using Russian launch services. Removal of all

quotas on the number and price of Russian

launches might be burdensome competition to a

U.S. launch-service provider and, at the same

time, a boon to a provider of on-orbit capabilities

who must pay to launch its satellites to orbit.

Whether such a tradeoff would result in a net increase or decrease of jobs in the aerospace industry as a whole is not clear. Even a net increase in

jobs might be small consolation to a launch-service provider that loses out. Some observers argue

that Russian entry into the launch-vehicle market

might result in an increase of business in the aerospace industry as a whole because of Russian technological capabilities that make launch services

cheaper. In that case, having Russian hardware

and technical expertise available to U.S. industry

for marketing at home and abroad could position

the U.S. aerospace industry to capture a larger

share of the expanded overall market, even while

it is losing market share in the launch-services

component of this market.

It might also be possible for domestic firms to

take advantage of Russian launch capabilities directly. As an example, the formation of LockheedKrunichev-Energia (LKE) International is an

attempt by Lockheed to market Proton launches to

geosynchronous orbit. LKE International argues

that it will not be taking market share away from

the U.S. Atlas or Titan, but from the French Ariane 4 and 5. Representatives of the U.S. launch industry at an Office of Technology Assessment

workshop, “Lower Industrial Tiers of the Space

Launch Vehicle Industry,” held in March 1995 expressed another viewpoint: the domestic launch

industry is struggling and does not need another

competitor in the medium-to-heavy launch-service market, irrespective of any possible enhancement of U.S. capabilities through cooperation

with the Russians.7

Apparently, the effect that any given cooperative venture with the Russians will have on jobs in

the U.S. space industry will depend on how that

cooperation is structured. Several possible arrangements are:

 Independent contribution. Have each side design and develop its contribution separately

and provide the other side with interface documents only. This type of arrangement has the

advantage of making it possible to control

technology transfer between the parties involved. But the components of a joint venture

provided by a foreign entity are not manufactured in the United States, so there would be no

contribution to U.S. manufacturing jobs. A

joint arrangement with independent contributions from both parties could, however, provide

a new service, or an existing service at a lower

price, thereby benefiting the U.S.-based partner.

 Commercial buy. In this case, a propulsion firm

such as Pratt and Whitney or Aerojet might buy

Russian rocket engines that could be made

compatible with U.S. boosters. Although such

a buy will probably lose jobs for the enginemanufacturing segment of the domestic industry, in most cases, testing and systems

engineering will still be required. Also, cheaper

engines might make U.S. launch services more

competitive, potentially increasing business

and creating jobs in that sector of the industry

7 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The National Space Transportation Policy: Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office), forthcoming, spring 1995.
82 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

and in others stimulated by low-cost launch

services.

 Licensing technology. A U.S. firm could buy

a license for a given engine technology and set

up its own production line. This licensing of

technology would result in increased employment for U.S. workers if it is successful in producing a product. It could also make those parts

of the industry that depend on the product of the

licensed technology more competitive in the

world market.

 Joint development. In a joint business venture

that seeks to develop a new service, the venture

can benefit from the technological expertise

that each side brings with it. Such ventures

could bring technological advancement to both

sides, which might then create new markets for

the products that would result from cooperation.

The United States must also decide how much

of its industrial base should be maintained to meet

national security needs and to ensure access to

space. Making use of existing Russian technology

could reduce the amount of research and development required of U.S. firms, resulting in reduced

costs, but it could also undercut the development

of U.S. capabilities in certain areas. Because the

space industry is considered to be indispensable to

the security of the United States, many argue that

the United States should develop and maintain its

own capabilities in certain critical areas to prevent

any weakening in its own technological base. In

line with that reasoning is the National Space

Transportation Policy, which states that the U.S.

government will not purchase launches on vehicles not manufactured in the United States.8 The

Department of Defense (DOD) is willing to use

launch systems that have foreign components and

technology, but only in such a way that foreign

suppliers cannot deny DOD access to space.9 Although this might result in higher costs to the government, it ensures that the United States will be

able to fulfill its space-related national security

needs without depending on foreign suppliers of

launch services.

❚ Technology Transfer

Cooperative ventures entail the risk of transfer of

domestic technologies that could be used to

strengthen a competitor’s position in the international aerospace market. Policymakers disagree

over how effective specific means to prevent such

transfer can really be, but present policy is clearly

in the direction of loosening trade restrictions.

Specifically, many items having to do with satellites and satellite technology have been moved

from the U.S. Munitions List10 onto the Commerce Control List, effectively making it easier to

trade in those items.11 There are recent reports that

further loosening of restrictions is being worked

out between the Department of State and the Department of Commerce.12

PROLIFERATION CONCERNS13

The principal current attempt to limit proliferation

of long-range delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons) is the Missile

8 The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Fact Sheet: National Space Transportation Policy, Aug. 5, 1994, section VI.

9 DOD Implementation Plan for National Space Transportation Policy, PDD/NSTC-4, Nov. 4, 1994.

10 Code of Federal Regulations 22, ch. 1, subch. M—International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Part 121—The United States Munitions List,

1994, pp. 383-402.

11 The U.S. Munitions List regulates export of items considered to have explicit military value. Those exports are regulated by the State

Department under the Arms Export Control Act (P. L. 90-629). The Commerce Control List includes dual-use items that have both civil and

military application. Those items are controlled by the Commerce Department under the Export Administration Act (P. L. 96-72).

12 Warren Ferster, “Satellite Export Controls To Ease,” Space News, p. 1, Feb. 20-26, 1995.

13 Most of the material in this section is taken from chapter 5 of U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies Underlying

Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1993).
Chapter 6 Domestic Impact and Proliferation Concerns | 83

Technology Control Regime (MTCR), created in

1987 by the United States and other Western industrialized nations. The MTCR established a

presumption to deny the transfer of ballistic missiles with ranges greater than 300 kilometers and

payload capacities greater than 500 kilograms to

nonmember nations. These guidelines have since

been extended to cover any systems “intended to

deliver weapons of mass destruction.” Russia has

pledged to join the MTCR and has agreed to abide

by its rules until it becomes a full-fledged member. Participation in the MTCR requires that Russia prohibit the transfer of complete systems,

components that could be used to make complete

systems, and technology involved in the production of components or of complete systems.

Missile systems and space-launch systems

have much in common, and arguments arise over

whether a particular technology is best suited to

one type of system or the other, or could be used

for both. Despite having many components and

technologies in common, space-launch systems

differ from vehicles designed to reenter the Earth’s

atmosphere and strike targets on the ground.

Space-launch systems do not require the sophisticated guidance needed for long-range ballistic

missiles; a 10-kilometer error is tolerable for putting a payload into orbit, but is a great tactical impediment when trying to hit a long-range target,

even for weapons of mass destruction. There are

many other technological barriers that separate

space-launch systems from working ballistic-missile systems, including the need for sophisticated

materials-processing capabilities and advanced

guidance systems. Despite all the technological

difficulties involved in producing a working ballistic-missile system, testing and development of

weapon-delivery systems can be accomplished

under the guise of developing a space-launch program. The prudent assumption is that any country

that has space-launch vehicles should be considered capable of developing ballistic missiles.

Economic shortfalls in the space sector and

throughout the Russian economy make the sale of

expensive, high-technology missile components

and systems extremely attractive. In 1992, India

contracted with Russia to buy a liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen engine to be used as the upper stage

for its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle

(GSLV). Both India and Russia resisted attempts

by the United States to declare the deal to be a

violation of the MTCR, which would have triggered sanctions that U.S. law requires be applied

against states engaged in such transfer. Finally, in

1993, and against the wishes of the Indian government, Russia agreed to break its contract with India and withhold the engine technology.14

The question remains of what the United States

can do to forestall the proliferation of technology,

components, and expertise from Russia to developing nations. Even if Russia is willing to abide

by the MTCR, as it has pledged to do, and prohibit

the export of hardware useful in ballistic missiles,

it might not be able to prevent the emigration of

rocket scientists seeking to escape stifling economic conditions that are aggravated by the present state of the Russian space program. Despite

Russia’s apparent concern over the loss of its aerospace engineers, it might not be able to prevent

their departure in all cases. People with expertise

can freely emigrate from Russia to neighboring

countries in the Newly Independent States (NIS),

and keeping track of where they go from there

might not be possible.

The United States might consider it in the interest of global nonproliferation to try to ensure that

the Russian space program has the greatest possible chance of remaining healthy and capable of

14 Four of the engines were sold to India by Russia. The United States’ main concern was the potential military uses of the technology that was

being transferred rather than the sale of the cryogenic engines themselves. Observers differed in their opinions about the usefulness of cryogenic

engines for weapons systems. Weapons systems require constant readiness, and cryogenic engines take a long time to prepare for launch. There

is no question, however, that some of the technology involved in the transfer could be beneficial to the development of long-range ballistic missiles.
84 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

retaining its experts. A similar kind of decision

arises in the case of the proliferation of nuclearweapons expertise, or brain drain. Attempting to

prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons is

probably more difficult because the scale of the

operation required to build some kinds of nuclear

weapon is small (particularly if the required nuclear material—enriched uranium or plutonium—

is available on the black market), while a

ballistic-missile program requires the integration

of a variety of complex and sometimes large systems. Nonetheless, the U.S. government’s response to the brain drain in the area of

nuclear-weapons technology was to provide some

direct funding to scientific researchers responsible for the development and engineering of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in an

effort to keep them employed in areas other than

the development of those weapons.15

Many of the scientists and engineers in the Russian civil and military space programs have expertise that could be usefully applied to space science

missions. Even during Cold War periods when the

political atmosphere made larger, high-profile

cooperative science efforts unacceptable, small,

low-profile science projects involving Russian

and U.S. scientists continued. That ongoing cooperation kept the lines of communication between

the two countries open and fostered commonality

of interest. With the lessening of tensions following the end of the Cold War, opportunities have increased for including Russia in international

science projects and for joint U.S.-Russian science missions.

15 Since FY1992, the Nunn-Lugar amendment to Public Law 102-228 and subsequent legislation have authorized the transfer of $1.6 billion

of Department of Defense funds to help accomplish the destruction and secure storage of weapons of mass destruction. Of that money, $25 million was to be the 1994 U.S. contribution to the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC), which would provide research opportunities for former Soviet Union scientists in collaborative efforts with Western scientists. See, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment,

Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union, OTA-ISS-605 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1994), pp. 23-28.

Some U.S. private foundations have also made money available to Russian research institutions to try to curtail the proliferation of nuclear-weapons expertise.
| 85

Appendix A:

1992 and Subsequent

U.S.-U.S.S.R.

Space Agreements

APPENDIX A1:

Agreement Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation

Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space

for Peaceful Purposes (June 1992)

The United States of America and the Russian Federation, hereinafter referred to as the Parties;

Considering the role of the two states in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes;

Desiring to make the results of the exploration and use of outer space available for the benefit of

the peoples of the two states and of all peoples of the world;

Considering the respective interest of the Parties in the potential for commercial applications of

space technologies for the general benefit;

Taking into consideration the provisions of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of

States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies, and

other multilateral agreements regarding the exploration and use of outer space to which both states are

Parties;

Expressing their satisfaction with cooperative accomplishments in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics, earth sciences, space biology and medicine, solar system exploration and solar terrestrial

physics, as well as their desire to continue and enhance cooperation in these and other fields;

Have agreed as follows:

❚ Article I

The Parties, through their implementing agencies, shall carry out civil space cooperation in the fields

of space science, space exploration, space applications and space technology on the basis of equality,

reciprocity and mutual benefit.

Cooperation may include human and robotic space flight projects, ground-based operations and

experiments and other activities in such areas as:
86 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

—Monitoring the global environment from space;

—Space Shuttle and Mir Space Station missions involving the participation of U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts;

—Safety of space flight activities;

—Space biology and medicine; and,

—Examining the possibilities of working together in other areas, such as the exploration of Mars.

❚ Article II

For purposes of developing and carrying out the cooperation envisaged in Article I of this Agreement,

the Parties hereby designate, respectively, as their principal implementing agencies the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the United States and the Russian Space Agency for the Russian

Federation.

The Parties may designate additional implementing agencies as they deem necessary to facilitate

the conduct of specific cooperative activities in the fields enumerated in Article I of this Agreement.

Each of the cooperative projects may be the subject of a specific written agreement between the

designated implementing agencies that defines the nature and scope of the project, the individual and

joint responsibilities of the designated implementing agencies related to the project, financial arrangements, if any, and the protection of intellectual property consistent with the provisions of this Agreement.

❚ Article III

Cooperative activities under this Agreement shall be conducted in accordance with national laws and

regulations of each party, and shall be within the limits of available funds.

❚ Article IV

The Parties shall hold annual consultations on civil space cooperation in order to provide a mechanism

for government-level review of ongoing bilateral cooperation under this Agreement and to exchange

views on such various space matters. These consultations could also provide the principal means for

presenting proposals for new activities falling within the scope of this Agreement.

❚ Article V

This Agreement shall be without prejudice to the cooperation of either Party with other states and international organizations.

❚ Article VI

The Parties shall ensure adequate and effective protection of intellectual property created or furnished

under this Agreement and relevant agreements concluded pursuant to Article II of this Agreement.

Where allocation of rights to intellectual property is provided for in such agreements, the allocation shall

be made in accordance with the Annex attached hereto which is an integral part of this Agreement. To

the extent that it is necessary and appropriate, such agreements may contain different provisions for

protection and allocation of intellectual property.

❚ Article VII

This Agreement shall enter into force upon signature by the Parties and shall remain in force for five

years. It may be extended for further five-year periods by an exchange of diplomatic notes. This Agreement may be terminated by either Party on six months written notice, through the diplomatic channel,

to the other Party.
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 87

DONE at Washington, in duplicate, this seventeenth day of June, 1992, in the English and Russian

languages, both texts being equally authentic.

FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: FOR THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION:

George Bush Boris Yeltsin
88 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

ANNEX: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Pursuant to Article VI of this Agreement:

The Parties shall ensure adequate and effective protection of intellectual property created or furnished

under this Agreement and relevant agreements concluded pursuant to Article II of this Agreement. The

Parties agree to notify one another in a timely fashion of any inventions or copyrighted works arising

under this Agreement and to seek protection for such intellectual property in a timely fashion. Rights

to such intellectual property shall be allocated as provided in this Annex.

❚ I. Scope

a. This annex is applicable to all cooperative activities undertaken pursuant to this Agreement, except

as otherwise specifically agreed by the Parties or their designees.

b. For purposes of this Agreement, “intellectual property” shall have the meaning found in Article 2 of

the convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, done at Stockholm, July 14,

1967.

c. This Annex addresses the allocation of rights, interests, and royalties between the Parties. Each Party

shall ensure that the other Party can obtain the rights to intellectual property allocated in accordance

with the Annex, by obtaining those rights from its own participants through contracts or other legal

means, if necessary. This Annex does not otherwise alter or prejudice the allocation between a Party

and its participants, which shall be determined by that Party’s laws and practices.

d. Disputes concerning intellectual property arising under this Agreement should be resolved through

discussions between the concerned participating institutions or, if necessary, the Parties or their designees. Upon mutual agreement of the Parties, a dispute shall be submitted to an arbitral tribunal for

binding arbitration in accordance with the applicable rules of international law. Unless the Parties or

their designees agree otherwise in writing, the arbitration rules of UNCITRAL shall govern.

e. Termination or expiration of this Agreement shall not affect rights or obligations under this Annex.

❚ II. Allocation of Rights

a. Each party shall be entitled to a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license in all countries to

translate, reproduce, and publicly distribute scientific and technical journal Articles, reports, and

books directly arising from cooperation under this Agreement. All publicly distributed copies of a

copyrighted work prepared under this provision shall indicate the names of the authors of the work

unless an author explicitly declines to be named.

b. Rights to all forms of intellectual property, other than those rights described in Section II(a) above,

shall be allocated as follows:

1. Visiting researchers and scientists visiting primarily in furtherance of their education shall receive

intellectual property rights under the policies of the host institution. In addition, each visiting researcher or scientist named as an inventor shall be entitled to share in a portion of any royalties

earned by the host institution from the licensing of such intellectual property.

2. (a) For intellectual property created during joint research with participation from the two Parties,

for example, when the Parties, participating institutions, or participating personnel have agreed

in advance on the scope of work, each Party shall be entitled to obtain all rights and interests

in its own country. Rights and interests in third countries will be determined in agreements concluded pursuant to Article II of this Agreement. The rights to intellectual property shall be allocated with due regard for the economic, scientific and technological contributions from each

Party to the creation of intellectual property. If research is not designated as “joint research”

in the relevant agreement concluded pursuant to Article II of this Agreement, rights to intel-
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 89

lectual property arising from the research shall be allocated in accordance with Paragraph IIb1.

In addition, each person named as an inventor shall be entitled to share in a portion of any royalties earned by their institution from the licensing of the property.

(b) Notwithstanding Paragraph IIb2(a), if a type of intellectual property is available under the laws

of one Party but not the other Party, the Party whose laws provide for this type of protection

shall be entitled to all rights and interests in all countries which provide rights to such intellectual property. Persons named as inventors of the property shall nonetheless be entitled to royalties

as provided in Paragraph IIb2(a).

❚ III. Business-Confidential Information

In the event that information identified in a timely fashion as business-confidential is furnished or created

under the Agreement, each Party and its participants shall protect such information in accordance with

applicable laws, regulations, and administrative practice. Information may be identified as “businessconfidential” if a person having the information may derive an economic benefit from it or may obtain

a competitive advantage over those who do not have it, the information is not generally known or publicly available from other sources, and the owner has not previously made the information available without

imposing in a timely manner an obligation to keep it confidential.
90 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

APPENDIX A2:

Protocol to the Implementing Agreement Between the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration of the United States of America and the Russian Space Agency of the

Russian Federation on Human Space Flight Cooperation of October 5, 1992

❚ Preamble

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (hereafter referred to as “NASA”), and the Russian

Space Agency (hereafter referred to as “RSA”), jointly referred to as “the Parties;”

Consistent with the Joint Statement on Cooperation in Space issued by Vice President Gore and

Prime Minister Chernomyrdin on September 2, 1993; desiring to broaden the scope of the Implementing

Agreement of October 5, 1992, on Human Space Flight Cooperation (hereinafter the October 5, 1992

Agreement) to encompass an expanded program of activities for cooperation involving the Russian

Mir-1 Space Station and the U.S. Space Shuttle Program;

Having decided that the enhanced cooperative program will consist of a number of inter-related

projects in two phases;

Having determined that Phase One will include those activities described in the October 5, 1992,

Agreement and known as the Shuttle-Mir Program, including the exchange of the Russian Mir-1 crew

and crew member participation in joint mission science, as well as additional astronaut flights, Space

Shuttle dockings with Mir-1, and other activities;

Having further determined that Phase Two of the enhanced cooperative program will involve use

of a Russian Mir module of the next generation mated with a U.S. laboratory module operated on a human-tended basis in conjunction with the Space Shuttle, operating in a 51.6 degree orbit which is accessible by both U.S. and Russian resources, to perform precursor activities for future space station-related

activities of each Party, with launch to occur in 1997; and

Intending that activities in Phase Two would be effected through subsequent specific agreement(s)

between the Parties.

Have agreed as follows:

❚ Article I: Description of Additional Activities

1. This Protocol forms an integral part of the October 5, 1992 Agreement.

2. An additional Russian cosmonaut flight on the Space Shuttle will take place in 1995. The back-up

cosmonaut currently in training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center will be the primary cosmonaut for

that flight, with the STS-60 primary cosmonaut acting as back-up. During this mission, the Shuttle

will perform a rendezvous with the Mir-1 Space Station and will approach to a safe distance, as determined by the Flight Operations and Systems Integration Joint Working Group established pursuant

to the October 5, 1992 Agreement.

3. The Space Shuttle will rendezvous and dock with Mir-1 in October-November 1995, and, if necessary, the crew will include Russian cosmonauts. Mir-1 equipment, including power supply and life

support system elements, will also be carried. The crew will return on the same Space Shuttle mission. This mission will include activities on Mir-1 and possible extravehicular activities to upgrade

solar arrays. The extravehicular activities may involve astronauts of other international partners of

the Parties.
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 91

4. NASA-designated astronauts will fly on the Mir-1 space station for an additional 21 months for a

Phase One total of two years. This will include at least four astronaut flights. Additional flights will

be by mutual agreement.

5. The Space Shuttle will dock with Mir-1 up to ten times. The Shuttle flights will be used for crew

exchange, technological experiments, logistics or sample return. Some of those flights will be dedicated to resources and equipment necessary for life extension of Mir-1. For schedule adjustments of

less than two weeks, both sides agree to attempt to accommodate such adjustments without impacting the overall schedule of flights. Schedule adjustments of greater than two weeks will be resolved

on a case-by-case basis through consultations between NASA and RSA.

6. A specific program of technological and scientific research, including utilization of the Mir-1 Spekter and Priroda modules, equipped with U.S. experiments, to undertake a wide-scale research program, will be developed by the Mission Science Joint Working Group established pursuant to the

October 5, 1992 Agreement. The activities carried out in this program will expand ongoing research

in biotechnology, materials sciences, biomedical sciences, Earth observations and technology.

7. Technology and engineering demonstrations applicable to future space station activities will be defined. Potential areas include but are not limited to: automated rendezvous and docking, electrical

power systems, life support, command and control, microgravity isolation system, and data management and collection. Joint crew operations will be examined as well.

8. The Parties consider it reasonable to initiate in 1993 the joint development of a solar dynamic power

system with a test flight on the Space Shuttle and Mir in 1996, the joint development of spacecraft

environmental control and life support systems, and the joint development of a common space suit.

9. The Parties will initiate a joint crew medical support program for the benefit of both sides’ crew

members, including the development of common standards, requirements, procedures, databases,

and countermeasures. Supporting ground systems may also be jointly operated, including telemedicine links and other activities.

10. The Space Shuttle will support the above activities, including launch and return transportation of

hardware, material, and crew members. The Shuttle may also support extravehicular and other space

activities.

11. Consistent with U.S. law, and subject to the availability of appropriated funds, NASA will provide

both compensation to the RSA for services to be provided during Phase One in the amount of US

$100 million in FY 1994, and additional funding of US $300 million for compensation of Phase One

and for mutually-agreed upon Phase Two activities will be provided through 1997. This funding will

take place through subsequent NASA-RSA and/or through industry-to-industry arrangements. Reimbursable activities covered by the above arrangements and described in paragraphs 3-8 will proceed after these arrangements are in place and after this Protocol enter into force in accordance with

Article III. Specific Phase One activities, schedules and financial plans will be included in separate

documents.

12. Implementation decisions on each part of this program will be based on the cost of each part of the

program, relative benefits to each Party, and relationship to future space station activities of the Parties.

13. The additional activities will not interfere with or otherwise affect any existing, independent obligations either Party may have to other international partners.
92 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

❚ Article II: Joint Implementation Teams

The coordination and implementation of the activities described herein will be conducted through the

Joint Working Groups established pursuant to the October 5, 1992 Agreement or such other joint bodies

as may be established by mutual agreement.

❚ Article III: Entry into Force

This Protocol will enter into force upon an exchange of diplomatic notes between the Governments of

the United States of America and the Russian Federation confirming acceptance of its terms and that all

necessary legal requirements for entry into force have been fulfilled.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, being duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this Protocol.

Done at Moscow, in duplicate, this sixteenth day of December, 1993, in the English and Russian

languages, both texts being equally authentic.

FOR THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND

SPACE ADMINISTRATION OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

FOR THE RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY OF

THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION:

Dan Goldin Yuri Koptev
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 93

APPENDIX A3:

Interim Agreement Between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

of the United States of America and the Russian Space Agency

for the Conduct of Activities Leading to Russian Partnership

in the Detailed Design, Development, Operation and Utilization

of the Permanently Manned Civil Space Station

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States of America (hereinafter referred to as “NASA”), and the Russian Space Agency (hereinafter referred to as “RSA”), hereinafter also

referred to as the “Parties”,

RECOGNIZING the Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes of June 17, 1992;

RECOGNIZING the successful cooperation being conducted by NASA and RSA under the Human

Space Flight Agreement of October 5, 1992, and the Protocol to that Agreement of December 16, 1993;

RECALLING the Summit Meeting of April 3, 1993, between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin which established the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Energy and Space;

RECALLING the Joint Statement of September 2, 1993, on Cooperation in Space issued by the U.S.-

Russian Joint Commission on Energy and Space chaired by Vice President Gore and Prime Minister

Chernomyrdin;

RECALLING the Joint Statement of December 16, 1993, on Space Cooperation issued by the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation chaired by Vice President Gore and

Prime Minister Chernomyrdin;

RECOGNIZING the Joint Invitation at the Occasion of the Intergovernmental Meeting of the Space Station Partners in Washington, DC, on December 6, 1993; and further recognizing the acceptance of the

invitation by the Government of the Russian Federation on December 17, 1993;

NOTING the obligations of the United States of America and NASA pursuant to:

The Agreement Among the Government of the United States of America, Governments of Member

States of the European Space Agency, the Government of Japan, and the Government of Canada on

Cooperation in the Detailed Design, Development, Operation, and Utilization of the Permanently

Manned Civil Space Station of September 29, 1988 (the Agreement is referred to hereinafter as the

“IGA”; the Governments of the United States, Japan, Canada, and the European Governments collectively, are hereinafter referred to as the “Partners”);

Memoranda of understanding on cooperation in the detailed design, development, operation, and utilization of the permanently manned civil space station between NASA and:

The Ministry of State for Science and Technology of Canada (September 29, 1988), and further noting

that upon its establishment on March 1, 1989, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) assumed responsibility for the execution of the Canadian Space Station Program from MOSST;

The European Space Agency (ESA) (September 29, 1988); and

The Government of Japan (March 14, 1989), and further noting the designation by the Government of

Japan of the Science and Technology Agency (STA) as its cooperating agency; (CSA, ESA, and STA

are hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners”);
94 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

NOTING the commitments of NASA in the Space Station Program Implementation Plan of September

7, 1993;

RECOGNIZING the Addendum to the Space Station Program Implementation Plan of November 2,

1993, hereinafter referred to as the “Addendum”; and

RECOGNIZING the Joint Statement on Negotiations Related to the Integration of Russia into the Space

Station Partnership issued by the Partners and the Government of the Russian Federation at the Intergovernmental Meeting on March 18, 1994, and the adoption of the following papers: “Changes in the Legal

Framework to Include Russia as a Partner” and “Modalities for Forthcoming Negotiations on the Space

Station Agreements;”

HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:

❚ Article 1—Objectives

1.1 This Agreement sets out the terms and conditions for NASA and RSA cooperation in activities

related to the initial participation in the Space Station Program by organizations or entities of, or

related to, the Government of the Russian Federation. This cooperation, an integrated partnership

among NASA, RSA and the Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners, will contribute

significantly to achieving the goal of a single, integrated international Space Station that will enhance the use of space for the benefit of all participating nations and humanity. The Parties are

also cooperating in additional activities pursuant to other agreements, including precursor activities to the cooperation on the Space Station described in this Agreement. These precursor activities, referred to as Phase 1, involve efforts to achieve significant risk reduction in the overall

program which are not subject to this Agreement. This Agreement covers later phases of the cooperation: the detailed design, development, operation and utilization of the Space Station.

1.2 This Agreement provides for:

Initial cooperation between NASA and RSA to integrate RSA into the planning process for detailed design, development, operation and utilization of the Space Station pending completion

of programmatic steps and entry into force of legal arrangements for a redesigned Space Station

with integral Russian participation;

Descriptions of managerial, technical and operational interfaces which are necessary to ensure

effective coordination and compatibility between Parties’ activities; and

Establishment of specified legal obligations, in connection with Russian participation in the

Space Station Program.

1.3 In particular, the purpose of this Agreement is to integrate RSA, to the maximum extent possible,

into Space Station management mechanisms under the IGA, and under the memoranda of understanding between NASA and ESA, NASA and the Government of Japan (GOJ), and NASA and

MOSST. The IGA, and these memoranda are attached for reference but are not part of this Agreement. Neither the Russian Federation nor RSA is a party to the IGA, or these memoranda.

1.4 The Parties intend to proceed expeditiously to define their respective contributions to the Space

Station Program, as well as operation and utilization concepts, preparatory to concluding a

NASA-RSA Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) covering their entire cooperation in the program. In addition, the Parties note that the Government of the Russian Federation and the Partners

stated on March 18, 1994, their intention to negotiate the following agreements: a Protocol to

amend the IGA so that Russia may become a party to it and to provide for Russian participation

in the Space Station Program as a partner; and a provisional arrangement concerning application
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 95

of the IGA and Protocol pending entry into force of the Protocol. The Parties envision that this

Agreement will remain in effect until the NASA-RSA MOU and Protocol have entered into force.

❚ Article 2—Responsibilities

2.1 While undertaking activities under this Agreement, NASA will provide overall program coordination and direction and perform overall system engineering and integration for the Space Station.

Boeing Aerospace is the U.S. prime contractor for system engineering and integration, and as

such will assist NASA as required in these activities. RSA will provide overall development,

coordination, management, and systems engineering and integration for its Space Station elements. RSA will participate in the management of the program and in the overall Space Station

system engineering and integration. NPO Energia is the Russian prime contractor for system engineering and integration, and as such will assist RSA as required in these activities. NASA and

RSA each remains ultimately responsible for performance of responsibilities delegated to its respective prime contractor.

2.2 NASA will conduct technical and managerial reviews of the Space Station program with RSA and

the Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners, as appropriate. NASA and RSA will develop all necessary joint documentation required for efficient execution of activities under this

Agreement. RSA will participate with NASA and the Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station

Partners in the management bodies as provided in Article 3.

❚ Article 3—Management

3.1 RSA is responsible for management of its activities in accordance with this Agreement, and

NASA is responsible for management of its activities in accordance with this Agreement, the IGA

and the memoranda of understanding between NASA and the Cooperating Agencies of the Space

Station Partners, and implementing arrangements under the IGA and the memoranda of understanding. Program management activities during the initial cooperation under this Agreement

will be consistent with the Addendum.

3.2 The NASA Space Station Program Director at NASA Headquarters and the RSA Deputy General

Director in Moscow will be responsible for their respective activities.

3.3 The NASA Space Station Program Manager at the Johnson Space Center and the RSA Deputy

Division Chief in Moscow will implement their respective activities under the direction of their

respective Agencies.

3.4 For initial cooperation under this Agreement, in accordance with Article 1, this Article establishes

the management mechanisms to coordinate the respective design and development activities of

NASA and RSA, to establish applicable requirements, to assure appropriate technical, operational, utilization, safety, and other activities, to establish interfaces between the Space Station elements, to review decisions, to establish schedules, to review the status of the activities, to report

progress and to resolve issues and disputes as they may arise.

3.5 The NASA-RSA Program Coordination Committee (PCC), co-chaired by the NASA Space Station Program Director and the RSA Deputy General Director, will meet periodically or at the request of either Party to review the Parties’ respective activities. The Co-Chairmen will together

take those decisions necessary to assure implementation of the cooperative activities related to

Space Station flight elements and to Space Station-unique ground elements provided by the Parties. In taking decisions regarding design and development, the NASA-RSA PCC will consider

operation and utilization impacts, and will also consider design and development recommendations from the Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) described below. However, decisions re-
96 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

garding operation and utilization activities will be taken by the MCB. The NASA-RSA PCC

Co-Chairmen will decide on the location and timing of the meetings. If the Co-Chairmen agree

that a specific issue or decision requires consideration by a Cooperating Agency of the Space Station Partners at the PCC level, the NASA-RSA PCC may meet jointly with the NASA-ESA PCC,

the NASA-GOJ PCC, and/or the NASA-CSA PCC.

3.6 Space Station requirements, configuration, housekeeping resource allocations for design purposes, and element interfaces; Space Station activities through the completion of assembly and

initial operational verification and other Space Station configuration control activities will be

controlled by the Space Station Control Board (SSCB) chaired by NASA. RSA will participate

on an equal basis with members of the SSCB and on such subordinate boards thereof as may be

agreed, attending and participating when these boards consider items which affect the RSA-provided elements, interfaces between the NASA-provided and the RSA-provided elements, and interfaces between the RSA-provided elements and elements provided by the Cooperating

Agencies of Space Station Partners. Decisions by the SSCB Chairman may be appealed to the

NASA-RSA PCC, although it is the duty of the SSCB Chairman to make every effort to reach

consensus with RSA rather than have RSA refer issues to the NASA-RSA PCC. Such appeals

will be made and processed expeditiously. Pending resolution of appeals, RSA need not proceed

with the implementation of a SSCB decision as far as its provided elements are concerned; NASA

may, however, proceed with a SSCB decision as far as its provided elements are concerned.

NASA will participate on RSA Space Station control boards, and on such subordinate boards

thereof as may be agreed, attending as appropriate.

3.7 The Space Station System Specification and any modifications thereto, signed by the NASA

Space Station Program Manager, the RSA Deputy General Director, and their counterparts in the

Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners, and approved by the SSCB, contain the requirements related to elements provided by the Parties, and the Cooperating Agencies of the

Space Station Partners.

3.8 The Parties will work through the above management mechanisms to seek agreement on a caseby-case basis with the intention to use interchangeable hardware and software to the maximum

extent possible in order to promote efficient and effective Space Station operations, including reducing the burden on the Space Station logistics system.

3.9 The NASA Space Station Program Office and the RSA Division for Manned Space Flight are responsible for NASA-RSA technical liaison activities. In order to facilitate the working relationships between the NASA Program Office in Houston and RSA, RSA will provide, and NASA

will accommodate, the RSA liaison to the NASA Space Station Program Office. Similarly, NASA

will provide and RSA will provide support for accommodation of the NASA liaison to the RSA

in Moscow. RSA may also provide additional representative(s) to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, to further facilitate the program working relationships. Arrangements specifying

conditions relating to the liaison relationships will be agreed to by the Co-Chairmen of the NASARSA PCC.

3.10 RSA will participate in selected NASA reviews on Space Station requirements, architecture and

interfaces. Similarly, NASA will participate in selected RSA reviews; the Cooperating Agencies

of the Space Station Partners will participate as appropriate.

3.11 Party has responsibilities regarding the management of its respective operations and utilization

activities and the overall Space Station operations and utilization activities, in accordance with

the provisions of this Agreement. Activities under this agreement will comprise long-range planning and top-level direction and coordination which will be performed by the strategic-level organizations, and which will be consistent with the Addendum. Operations plans will be developed
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 97

by the Parties. These plans will include any necessary contingency plans for the safe and efficient

operation of the Space Station while on-orbit. They will also outline the division of responsibilities of the Parties, taking into account RSA’s particular operations capabilities during Phase 2,

in the framework of a unified command and control center concept as outlined in the Addendum.

3.12 The Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB), an established Space Station management body,

meets periodically or promptly at the request of the Parties or a Cooperating Agency of the Space

Station Partners with the task to ensure coordination of activities related to the operation and utilization of the Space Station. The Parties to this Agreement and the Cooperating Agencies of the

Space Station Partners will plan and coordinate activities affecting the safe, efficient and effective

operation and utilization of the Space Station through the MCB, except as otherwise specifically

provided in this Agreement. The MCB will comprise the NASA Space Station Program Director;

the RSA Deputy General Director; the STA Director-General of the Research and Development

Bureau; the ESA Columbus Programme Department Head; and the CSA Vice President for Human Spaceflight. The NASA Space Station Program Director will chair the MCB. The Parties

agree that all MCB decisions should be made by consensus. However, where consensus cannot

be achieved on any specific issue within the purview of the MCB within the time required, the

issue will be resolved on the basis of the principles which govern the MCB.

3.13 The MCB has established Panels responsible for the long-range strategic coordination of the operation and utilization of the Space Station, called the System Operations Panel (SOP) and the

User Operations Panel (UOP) respectively. The MCB approves, on an annual basis, a Consolidated Operations and Utilization Plan (COUP) for the Space Station based on the annual Composite Operations Plan and the annual Composite Utilization Plan developed by the Panels. In doing

so, the MCB will be responsible for resolving any conflicts between the Composite Operations

Plan and the Composite Utilization Plan which cannot be resolved by the Panels. The COUP will

be prepared by the User Operations Panel and agreed to by the System Operations Panel. The

COUP will be implemented by the appropriate tactical and execution-level organizations. Any

portions of a COUP which cover activities prior to Assembly Complete plus one year of initial

operational verification will be subject to adjustments by the SSCB that are required to assemble,

verify, operate and maintain the Space Station.

3.14 The Parties will use their best efforts, in consultation with the Cooperating Agencies of the Space

Station Partners, to incorporate any necessary changes in management operation within the

framework of the management structure to reflect the expanded number of partners in the Space

Station program.

❚ Article 4—Safety and Mission Assurance

4.1 In order to assure safety, NASA has the responsibility, working with the RSA and the Cooperating

Agencies of the Space Station Partners, to establish overall Space Station safety and mission assurance requirements and plans.

4.2 RSA will develop detailed safety and mission assurance requirements and plans, using its own

requirements for its Space Station hardware and software. Such requirements and plans must meet

or exceed the overall Space Station safety requirements and plans. Requirements for which meet

or exceed criteria are not appropriate will be determined by agreement of the Parties. RSA will

have the responsibility to implement Space Station safety and mission assurance requirements

and plans with respect to the elements and payloads it provides throughout the lifetime of the program, and to certify that such requirements and plans have been met. NASA will have the overall

responsibility to certify that all Space Station elements and payloads are safe.
98 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

4.3 The Parties will exchange information necessary in order to conduct system safety reviews. The

Parties will also conduct safety reviews of the elements and payloads they provide.

❚ Article 5—Cross-Waiver of Liability

5.1 The objective of this Article is to establish a cross-waiver of liability by the Parties to this Agreement and related entities in the interest of encouraging participation in space exploration, use and

investment through the Space Station. In addition, in light of the liability requirements in Article

16 of the IGA, a second purpose of this article is to fulfill the obligation of the United States of

America, as a Partner State, to extend the cross-waiver to related entities of the United States Government in the Space Station Program. Thus, pursuant to this Article, RSA, as a related entity of

NASA and the Government of the United States of America, for purposes of this article, is protected by application of the Cross-Waiver of Liability agreed to by the Partner States in the IGA.

The cross-waiver of liability shall be broadly construed to achieve the objective of encouraging

participation in space activities.

5.2 For the Purposes of this Article:

(a) The term “damage” means:

(1) bodily injury to, or other impairment of health of, or death of, any person;

(2) damage to, loss of, or loss of use of any property;

(3) loss of revenue or profits; or

(4) other direct, indirect, or consequential damage.

(b) The term “launch vehicle” means an object (or any part thereof) intended for launch,

launched from Earth, or returning to Earth which carries payloads or persons, or both.

(c) “Partner State” means a signatory to the IGA. A “Partner State” includes its Cooperating Agency. It also includes any entity specified in the Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and the Government of Japan to assist the Government of Japan’s

Cooperating Agency in the implementation of that Agreement.

(d) The term “payload” means all property to be flown or used on or in a launch vehicle

or the Space Station.

(e) The term “Protected Space Operations” means all launch vehicle activities, Space Station activities, and payload activities on Earth, in outer space, or in transit between

Earth and outer space done in implementation of this Agreement, the IGA, the memoranda of understanding between NASA and the Cooperating Agencies of the Space

Station Partners, or implementing arrangements under the IGA and the memoranda

of understanding. It includes, but is not limited to:

(1) Research, design, development, test, manufacture, assembly, integration, operation, or

use of launch or transfer vehicles (for example, the orbital maneuvering vehicle), the

Space Station, or a payload, as well as related support equipment and facilities and services;

(2) All activities related to ground support, test, training, simulation, or guidance and control

equipment, and related facilities or services.

“Protected Space Operations” also includes all activities related to evolution of the Space Station,

as provided for in Article 14 of the IGA. “Protected Space Operations” excludes activities on Earth

which are conducted on return from the Space Station to develop further a payload’s product or
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 99

process for use other than for Space Station-related activities in implementation of this Agreement

or the IGA.

(f) The term “related entity” means:

(1) A contractor or subcontractor of a Party or a Partner State at any tier;

(2) A user or customer of a Party or a Partner State at any tier; or

(3) A contractor or subcontractor of a user or customer of a Party or a Partner State at any

tier.

“Contractors” and “subcontractors” include suppliers of any kind.

5.3 (a) Each Party agrees to a cross-waiver of liability pursuant to which each Party waives

all claims against any of the entities or persons listed in paragraphs 5.3(a)(1) through

5.3(a)(4) below based on damage arising out of Protected Space Operations. This

cross-waiver shall apply only if the person, entity, or property causing the damage is

involved in Protected Space Operations and the person, entity, or property damaged

is damaged by virtue of its involvement in Protected Space Operations. The crosswaiver shall apply to any claims for damage, whatever the legal basis for such claims,

including but not limited to delict and tort (including negligence of every degree and

kind) and contract, against:

(1) the other Party;

(2) a Partner State other than the United States of America;

(3) a related entity of any entity identified in subparagraphs 5.3(1)(1) or 5.3(a)(2) above; or

(4) the employees of any of the entities identified in subparagraphs 5.3(a)(1) through

5.3(a)(3) above.

(b) In addition, each Party shall extend the cross-waiver of liability as set forth in paragraph 5.3(a) above to its own related entities by requiring them, by contract or otherwise, to agree to waive all claims against the entities or persons identified in

subparagraphs 5.3(a)(1) through 5.3(a)(4) above.

(c) For avoidance of doubt, this cross-waiver of liability includes a cross-waiver of liability arising from the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by

Space Objects, of March 29, 1972, where the person, entity, or property causing the

damage is involved in Protected Space Operations and the person, entity, or property

damaged is damaged by virtue of its involvement in Protected Space Operations.

(d) Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Article, this cross-waiver of liability

shall not be applicable to:

(1) claims between NASA and RSA arising out of activities conducted under any contract

between NASA and RSA;

(2) claims between a Party and its other related entities or between its own related entities;

(3) claims made by a natural person, his/her estate, survivors, or subrogees for injury or death

of such natural person;

(4) claims for damage caused by willful misconduct;

(5) intellectual property claims.

(e) Nothing in this Article shall be construed to create the basis for a claim or suit where

none would otherwise exist.
100 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

❚ Article 6—Exchange of Technical Data and Goods

6.1 Except as otherwise provided in this Article, each Party will transfer all technical data and goods

considered to be necessary (by both parties to any transfer) to fulfill its respective responsibilities

under this Agreement. In addition, NASA may request a Cooperating Agency of a Space Station

Partner to transfer directly to RSA technical data and goods necessary to fulfill NASA’s responsibilities under this Agreement. NASA may also request RSA to transfer directly to a Cooperating

Agency of a Space Station Partner technical data and goods necessary to fulfill RSA’s responsibilities under this Agreement. Each Party undertakes to handle expeditiously any request for technical data or goods presented by the other Party for the purposes of this cooperation. This paragraph

will not require either Party to transfer any technical data and goods in contravention of its national laws or regulations.

6.2 The transfers of technical data and goods under this Agreement will be subject to the restrictions

set forth in this paragraph. Technical data and goods not covered by these restrictions will be transferred without restrictions, except as otherwise restricted by national laws and regulations.

(a) The furnishing Party or a Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner will mark

with a notice, or otherwise specifically identify, the technical data or goods that are

to be protected for export control purposes. Such notice or identification will indicate

any specific conditions regarding how such technical data or goods may be used by

the receiving Party and its contractors and subcontractors, and by the Cooperating

Agency of a Space Station Partner and its contractors and subcontractors. These

conditions will include: (1) that such technical data or goods will be used only for the

international Space Station program to fulfill responsibilities of the Parties or of a

Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner, and (2) that such technical data or

goods will not be used by persons or entities other than the receiving Party, its contractors or subcontractors, and by the Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner, its

contractors or subcontractors, or for any other purpose without the prior written permission of the furnishing Party.

(b) The furnishing Party or a Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner will mark

with a notice the technical data that are to be protected for proprietary rights purposes.

Such notice will indicate any specific conditions regarding how such technical data

may be used by the receiving Party and its contractors and subcontractors, and by the

Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner and its contractors and subcontractors,

including (1) that such technical data will be used, duplicated, or disclosed only for

the international Space Station program to fulfill responsibilities of the Parties or of

a Cooperating Agency of the Space Station Partner, and (2) that such technical data

will not be used by persons or entities other than the receiving Party, its contractors

or subcontractors, the Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner, its contractors

or subcontractors, or for any other purpose without the prior written permission of the

furnishing Party.

6.3 Each Party will take all necessary steps to ensure that technical data and goods received by it under subparagraph 6.2(a) or 6.2(b) above will be treated by the Receiving Party, and other persons

and entities (including Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners, contractors and subcontractors) to which the data and goods are subsequently transferred in accordance with the terms

and conditions of the notice. (The Cooperating Agencies of the Space Station Partners and their

respective Governments have obligations under the IGA to protect data and goods transferred by

RSA under this Agreement.) Each Party will take all reasonably necessary steps, including ensur-
Appendix A 1992 and Subsequent U.S.-U.S.S.R. Space Agreements | 101

ing appropriate contractual conditions in their contracts and subcontracts, to prevent unauthorized

use, disclosure, or retransfer of, or unauthorized access to, such technical data and goods.

6.4 It is not the intent of the Parties to grant, through this Agreement, any rights to a recipient beyond

the right to use, disclose, or retransfer received technical data or goods consistent with conditions

imposed under this Article.

6.5 For purposes of this cooperation, interface, integration, safety and testing data (excluding detailed

design, manufacturing and processing data, and associated software) shall be exchanged by the

Parties without restrictions as to use or disclosure, except as specifically required by national laws

and regulations relating to export controls.

❚ Article 7—Intellectual Property

7.1 With the exception of the intellectual property rights referred to in Article 6, Exchange of Technical Data and Goods, and subject to national laws and regulations, provisions for the protection

and allocation of intellectual property rights created during the course of cooperation between the

Parties to this Agreement are set forth in Annex 1 of the June 17, 1992, Agreement between the

United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration

and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes.

7.2 Except as set forth in paragraph 7.1, nothing in this Agreement will be construed as granting or

implying any rights to, or interest in, patents or inventions of the Parties or their contractors or

subcontractors.

❚ Article 8—Public Information

Each Party will coordinate, as appropriate, with the other in advance concerning its own or joint public

information activities related to subjects covered by this Agreement.

❚ Article 9—Customs and Immigration

9.1 Each Party will use its best efforts to facilitate the movement of persons and goods necessary to

implement this Agreement, into and out of its territory, subject to laws and regulations of its respective country.

9.2 Subject to its respective countries’ laws and regulations, each Party will use its best efforts to facilitate provision of the appropriate entry and residence documentation for the other Party’s nationals and their families, or for the nationals and their families of Space Station Partner States

who enter, exit or reside within its territory in order to carry out activities described herein.

9.3 The Parties will use their best efforts to arrange in their respective countries for free customs clearance, to include no payment of import and export duties and no payment for the conduct of customs procedures, for entrance to, and exit from, their respective countries, for goods required for

implementation of the activities described herein.

9.4 RSA will take steps to facilitate the movement of persons and goods and clearances to and from

launch facilities RSA will utilize to fulfill its obligations under this Agreement.

❚ Article 10—Financial Arrangements

10.1 Each Party will bear the costs of fulfilling its responsibilities, including but not limited to costs

of compensation, travel and subsistence of its own personnel and transportation of all equipment

and other items for which it is responsible under this Agreement, except as provided for in contractual or other arrangements between the Parties.
102 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

10.2 The financial obligations of each Party pursuant to this Agreement are subject to its funding procedures and the availability of appropriated funds. Recognizing the importance of Space Station

cooperation, each Party undertakes to make its best efforts to obtain approval for the funds to meet

those obligations, consistent with its respective funding procedures.

10.3 In the event that funding problems arise that may affect a Party’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities

under this Agreement, that Party will promptly notify and consult with the other Party.

10.4 The Parties will seek to minimize the exchange of funds while carrying out their respective responsibilities in this cooperative program, including, if they agree, through the use of barter, that is,

the provision of goods or services.

❚ Article 11—Termination

11.1 This Agreement may be terminated at any time by giving at least three months prior notice by diplomatic note. Upon notice of termination for any reason, NASA and RSA will expeditiously negotiate an agreement concerning the terms and conditions of termination. To the extent that

termination affects specific rights or obligations of a Cooperating Agency of a Space Station Partner under the IGA or the MOU between NASA and that Cooperating Agency, NASA will consult

with the affected Cooperating Agency before concluding any such agreement.

11.2 Termination by either Party will not affect that Party’s continuing rights and obligations under this

Agreement with regard to liability and the protection of technical data and goods unless otherwise

agreed in a termination agreement pursuant to Article 11.1.

❚ Article 12—Amendment

This Agreement may be amended by written agreement of the Parties.

❚ Article 13—Language

The working language for activities under this Agreement will be the English language and data and information generated or provided under this Agreement will be in the English language.

❚ Article 14—Entry into Force

This Agreement will enter into force upon the exchange of diplomatic notes confirming its terms by the

Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation. Unless this

Agreement is terminated pursuant to Article 11, it will remain in effect consistent with Article 1.4, until

otherwise agreed by the Parties.

Done at Washington, in duplicate, this twenty-third day of June, 1994, in the English and Russian

languages, each text being equally authentic.

FOR THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND

SPACE ADMINISTRATION OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: FOR THE RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY:

Dan Goldin Yuri Koptev
Appendix B:

Public Sector

U. S.-Russian

Cooperative

Projects

| 103
Field and mission/title Description Russian entity Status

Astrophysics

Exchange of Compton

and Granat Data

Experiment for

gamma-ray and optical

transients (EGOTS)/

Konus-A

Gamma-ray burst data

exchange

HETE

Long-duration balloon

studies for Relict-3

mission

Operations and archiving

for Spectrum-X-Gamma

(SXG)

Mission timelines being exchanged. U.S.

proposal to perform correlative studies of

neutron stars and stellar-mass black hole

candidates using BATSE, SIGMA, and

ART-P.

Russian proposal for U.S. participation in

proposed flight in 1995.

Exchange of data among BATSE, Granat,

and Ulysses.

International gamma-ray-burst survey

using a small satellite to be built by

the United States, in collaboration with

France and Japan; NASA to loan

ground-station equipment to Russia to

receive signals from HETE and to alert

visible-light observatories to look at burst

sources.

Russian Relict-3 mission funded for

Phase A. NASA participation under

consideration.

Cooperation in archiving and operations

for Spectrum-X, using NASA-supplied

hardware for the SXG archiving system.

Institute of Space

Research (IKI)

Ioffe Institute, St.

Petersburg

IKI

Pulkovo Observatory,

St. Petersburg

IKI

IKI

Granat expected to operate in three-axis

stabilized mode through 10/94. Russian and

French partners considering operating in a

scanning mode through about 10/95. Scientific CD

data exchange discussed at 4/94 JWG.

Approved by RSA as Konus-A. To be flown on a o

low-Earth orbit spacecraft scheduled for launch - .

in early 1995. Could be reflown in 1-2 years as

Konus-A2.

Burst timing/location now or will be available

from PVO, SMM, Ginga, Phobos-2, Compton,

WIND, Ulysses, Granat, Coronas-1 and Mars ’94

(now ‘96). Good exchange of data currently

among BATSE, Granat and Ulysses.

Satellite launch planned for 7/95 at the earliest.

Loan agreement to be written.

Sides agreed that long-duration balloon-based

observations might be a good preliminary step.

Russians noted that LDBF near Moscow had

been closed due to funding problems. NASA to

discuss with its science community the

usefulness of such flights in northern

hemisphere.

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory selected

as the U.S. SXG Coordinating Facility, to support

U.S. guest observers and work with IKI to define

and procure archiving hardware.
Precision Gamma-ray U.S. germanium gamma-ray detectors to

spectrometer (PGS) fly as part of Russian experiment on Mars

’94 (now ’96) orbiter; U.S. contribution

sponsored by NASA and DOE; being

handled in Solar System Exploration JWG.

Radioastron Russian mission; NASA to provide DSN

support, loan of VLBA recording terminals,

and VLBA observing time and to cooperate

in correlation of selected data sets.

Relict-2

Spectrum-UV

Spectrum-X-Gamma

Wind/Konus

Russian mission similar to COBE. NASA

participation in development and

fabrication of receivers.

170-cm telescope for imaging and

spectroscopy, with possible co-aligned

smaller telescopes, in a 7-day, highly

elliptical orbit.

NASA to provide Stellar X-ray Polarimeter

(SXRP), Monitoring X-ray Experiment

(MOXE—AII Sky X-ray Monitor), and filters

for Russian EUVITA instrument.

Gamma-ray burst detectors for Wind

spacecraft, as part of ISTP;

co-investigator from the Ioffe Institute,

IKI

IKI, Russian Academy

of Sciences (RAS)

IKI

Institute of Astronomy,

RAS,

IKI

IKI

Ioffe Institute

Launch date slipped to 1996. U.S. components,

built by DOE/LANL, shipped to IKI in 1993.

Launch date TBD, no earlier than 1997 (following

Spectrum-X-Gamma); engineering model of

10-m deployable antenna being fabricated,

scheduled to be completed by the end of 1994;

ground test early 1995 at Puschino Radio

Observatory.

Development of flight model spacecraft, utilizing

Prognosz engineering model, pending availability

of funds; launch scheduled for 12/95. Computer

workstation and software for processing COBE

data by Relict science team procured at GSFC;

to be loaned to IKI by NASA.

Currently not scheduled for flight, Ukraine,

Canada, Germany and Italy also reportedly

involved.

Scheduled launch date is late 1996. Engineering

models of SXRP and MOXE instruments

accepted by IKI; flight units in production, MOU

being developed.

Instrument delivered and integrated on

spacecraft. Launched 11/1/94.

Earth Science and

Environmental Monitoring

JWGs

BOREAS Field Experiment Joint U.S.-Canada experiment on Institute of Forest and Russian investigator selected through

interactions between the boreal forest and Timber (IFT), Siberian peer-reviewed process, resident at the

the atmosphere. Branch, RAS University of New Hampshire.

Correlative measurements Cooperation involving ground-, balloon-, Institute of Joint Implementation Team formed 4/94; more

of ozone and aircraft-based measurements Atmospheric Optics than 30 Russian proposals currently under study.

correlative with space-based (IAO)

measurements,
Field and mission/title

Crustal Deformation in

Pamir-Tien Shari

Earthquake Precursors

Study

FEDMAC-Sayani Field

Experiments

FIFE-Kursk Field

Experiments

Gravity and Magnetics in

Tibet and China

Internet Connectivity

Kamchatka Volcanological

Studies

LITE Shuttle mission

Meteor-3/TOMS

Description Russian entity

Determining the mechanisms of mountain

building using the Tien Shari mountains

as a natural laboratory.

Data exchanges in the area of

atmospheric precursors to earthquakes.

Study of forest health using in situ and

satellite data.

Study of climatologically significant

land-surface parameters using satellite

data.

Analysis of gravity data from Russia and

western China by bilateral investigator

groups.

Extending electronic communications via

the existing NASA Science Internet (NSI)

connection with IKI to reach Russian

Earth science facilities.

Exchange of U.S. and Russian aircraft

data and joint ground measurements;

joint analysis of data.

To coordinate Russian ground-based

LIDAR measurements with Shuttle-based

measurements; Russian principal

investigator on science team.

Flight of NASA Total Ozone Mapping

Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument on

Meteor-3 polar orbiter.

Institute of High

Temperature Physics,

RAS

Institute of Astronomy,

RAS

IFT

Institute of

Computational

Mathematics, RAS

Institute of

Mathematical

Geophysics, RAS

IKI, RAS

Institute of Geology,

Petrology, Mineralogy,

and Geochemistry

(IGPMG), RAS

IAO, Siberian Branch,

RAS

Russian Federal

Service for

Hydrometeorology and

Environmental

Monitoring

(ROSHYDROMET)

Status

Major field program during summers 1993 and

1994; included scientists from Russia,

Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the United States;

further field experiments planned for summer

1995.

Some exchanges completed; further exchanges,

including retrospective analysis of satellite data

for selected California earthquakes, to continue.

Field work complete; final publications being

prepared.

Field work complete; final publications being

prepared.

Modeling continuing.

List of priority sites to be jointly developed and

provided to NSI for implementation.

Learjet overflights completed 8-9/94; additional

aircraft flights under consideration; data

exchanges under way.

9/94 Shuttle flight.

8/91 launch; TOMS instrument failed in early

1995.

II
Moz-Obzor (Priroda)

Operational Data

Transmissions

Priroda

Regional Tectonics in

Eurasia

SAGE Flight

SeaWiFS

Siberian AVHRR Stations

Space Geodetic

Measurements

TAIGA Study of the Boreal

Forest

TOMS Flight

Watershed Hydrology

Use of the Moz-Obzor ocean-color

instrument on Priroda in conjunction with

SeaWiFS.

Processing of limited amount of NOAA

satellite products by ROSHYDROMET for

use in local and regional forecasting;

provided by NOAA through GTS.

NASA invited to participate in the science

associated with the Mir-Priroda module.

Through WEGENER program

Flight of SAGE instrument on a Russian

Meteor-3M as part of NASA EOS

Program.

Variety of activities involving Russian

participation in U.S. SeaWiFS project.

Installation of two NASA-provided HRPT

stations at Yakutsk and Khabarovsk to

support IGBP 1 -km data set project.

Long-term loan of Mark 3 VLBI

data-acquisition systems; satellite laser

tracking and exchanges of data; potential

project in atmospheric precursors for

earthquakes.

Exchange of Russian ground truth and

data from NASA-provided satellite HRPT

receiving station in Krasnoyarsk, to study

forest productivity, forest health, fire risk,

and fire history in the context of the global

carbon cycle.

Flight of another TOMS on a Russian

Meteor-3M.

Study of microwave remote sensing for

Project (Priroda) large-watershed hydrology.

Institute of

Radioengineering and

Electronics (IRE)

ROSHYDROMET

IRE

Institute of Geology,

RAS

RSA, Scientific

Research Institute of

Electromechanics

(NIIEM)

Shirshov Institute, RAS

ROSHYDROMET

Institute of Astronomy,

RAS

International Forestry

Institute (IFI), RAS

RSA, NIIEM

IRE, RAS

U.S. proposal accepted by the Priroda Science

Team.

Under way

Seven NASA investigations using

Russian-provided instruments; launch December

1995.

GPS survey of Caucasus completed 1993;

workshop 6/94 in St. Petersburg.

Agreed at 12/94 GCC meeting.

Russian scientist selected as a principal

investigator in the SeaWiFS program; Russian

bio-optical data delivered to SeaWiFS database;

NASA to facilitate further Russian scientist

participation.

Installed 1 -2/95.

Loan agreement in place; first VLBI experiments

summer 1994; satellite laser ranging (SLR) data

exchanges well-established.

Letter agreement concluded 3/94; equipment

installed 11/94.

Agreed at 12/94 GCC meeting.

Formalized at 6/94 Priroda Scientific Council

meeting.
Field and mission/title

Solar System

Exploration

Antarctic instrument

cross-calibration balloon

flight

Coordination and

exchange of data for

science exploration of

Venus

Coordination of future

missions

Description Russian entity Status

To cross-calibrate remote-sensing

gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers

for geochemical observation of planetary

surfaces.

Data exchange from the Magellan,

Galileo, and Venera/Vega missions; data

documentation and archiving; review of

Russian scientists’ experience in the

Magellan Guest Investigator Program;

specific joint investigations and studies;

IKI At the 10/94 JWG, discussed successful

Antarctic balloon flight; recommended expansion

of goals to encompass intercalibration of

geochemical systems for U.S. and Russian

planetary missions; detailed plan to be

submitted at next JWG meeting.

documentation of future exploration goals,

including consideration of concepts for

future techniques and experiments to

achieve these goals; selection of future

landing sites and/or balloon traverses;

and identification of future

joint/complementary experiments and

missions.

Technical study of future cooperative IKI

solar system exploration missions.

IKI Discussed at 10/94 JWG; progress satisfactory;

meetings 1/95 and 3/95 in Arizona and Houston,

TX.

Coordination of missions U.S. VLBI tracking of Mars ’96 during IKI, RAS

cruise to Mars; U.S. Mars Surveyor relay

of Mars ’96 lander data to verify lander

operability; joint tracking campaigns

during Mars orbit phase; and joint

10/94 JWG meeting received reports from joint

technical study teams for Mars Together, and

Fire and Ice. JWG endorsed reports in principle

and forwarded them to the 12/94, GCC meeting,

at which the principals asked the JWG to

continue the study activity and produce a

specific recommendation at the next GCC

meeting (6/95).

Discussed at 10/94 JWG meeting; progress

satisfactory.

U.S.-Russian VLBI tracking experiments.
Coordination of science

observations and

exchanges of data

Exobiology

Ground-based

observations in support of

planetary missions

Mars ’96

Mars engineering models

Mars landing-site

selection

Mercuric iodide room

temperature x-ray

detecting system

Space Biomedicine, Life

Support Systems and

Microgravity Sciences

Biological investigations

aboard Mir

Development of common data formats;

systematic exchange of data sets in the

agreed formats; and exchange of

participating scientists.

Characterization of Mars sites of interest

to exobiology, Mars mission strategies,

instrumentation for various missions, and

planetary protection.

To coordinate Mars Watch and NearEarth Objects Watch,

Fly two copies of U.S. Mars Oxidant

(MOX) experiment on Mars ’96 landers.

To develop realistic models of the Martian

near-surface wind environment to

support future lander missions.

To develop models of the Martian surface

for the design of future missions and

selection of landing sites.

Part of German alpha backscatter

Instrument for Mars ’96.

Investigations to include “Seed to Seed”

experiment with dwarf wheat and

IKI

IKI

IKI

IKI, RAS

IKI

IKI

Max Planck Institute,

Germany; IKI

Institute of Biomedical

Problems (IBMP)

Activities involving the Phobos, Mars ‘96-’ 98,

Mars Surveyor, and Pathfinder missions reviewed

at 10/94 JWG meeting; substantial progress

made. Detailed status of each Participating

Scientist to be reviewed at the next JWG

meeting.

At the 10/94 JWG meeting, implementation team

recommended continuation of joint Mars site

studies and a joint workshop on planetary

protection measures for Mars sample return

missions.

At the 10/94 JWG, agreed to continue and

strengthen joint ground-based observing

programs through an exchange of observing

plans and results.

Flight postponed to 1996; progress satisfactory,

United States to continue modeling work; both

sides to seek better understanding and

verification of the results by comparison with

available observations and other models,

Agreement at the 10/94 JWG meeting on several

specific steps to develop additional information

for refinement of the engineering model; met in

3/95 in Houston to review potential landing sites

for Mars ’96 small landers and penetrators.

Hardware delivered; awaiting 1996 launch.

At 3-4/94 JWG meeting, two sides agreed to

proceed with implementation.

investigations of avian egg development.
Field and mission/title Description

U.S. reimbursable participation in primate

scientific programs on the Russian

Bion 11 and 12 biosatellite missions,

scheduled for 1996 and 1998.

Flight of U.S. primate experiments on

Russian biosatellite mission.

Russian entity Status

RSA, IBMP, Central

Specialized Design

Bureau, Samara (TsKB)

Contract signed 12/94; series of working

meetings under way at NASA Ames Research

Center (ARC) and IBMP.

Bion 11 and 12

Bion 10 flight experiments IBMP, Institute of

Evolutionary

Physiology and

Biochemistry (IEPB),

RAS

Experiments completed; analysis of results

presented and published.

IEPB At 9/94 meeting, two sides agreed to begin

identifying sources of data from the respective

countries, types of data, and database formats.

Specific range of data types sought agreed to at

3-4/94 JWG meeting.

Agreement in principle; implementing agreement

under negotiation.

Cooperation regarding

space-radiationenvironment databases

Beginning with 9/94 meeting, pursue a

systematic exchange of databases.

Flight of TEPC (Tissue

Equivalent Proportional

U.S.-provided TEPC to be flown on the

Mars ’94 mission (now slipped to 1996).

IEPB

Counter) on the Mars ’94

mission

IBMP life-support testbed

upgrade

Russia invited the United States to take At 3-4/94 JWG meeting, U.S. side agreed to

part in upgrading the IBMP life-support

testbed in order to set up an international

center on the development and testing of

complex physical-chemical and

environmental life-support systems.

IBMP

study the proposal.

Joint experimental

dosimetric measurements

IEPB Measurements on STS-60 mission

continue on subsequent flights.

completed; to

Agreed during 3-4/94 JWG meeting;

preparations under way.

Ongoing.

Joint rodent

developmental experiment

Joint experiment on board the Space

Shuttle in 10/94.

Testing and evaluation of medical

programs during Phase One.

IBMP

Medical systems in

support of the

International Space

Station

IBMP, Cosmonaut

Training Center (TsPK),

RSA

Publication of

“Foundations of Space

Multivolume compendium of U.S. and

Russian articles on research in the field.

IBMP, Ministry of

Health

Exchange of chapters for Volume Ill completed;

for Volume IV, to be completed by 9/30/95.

Biology and Medicine”
Radiation-exposure

standards

Shuttle/Mir program

SLS-2 flight experiments

Space-crew safety,

operational efficiency and

unified U.S.-Russian

medical support in piloted

missions

Standardizing techniques

for physical, chemical,

and biological analyses of

recovered water and air

Support of Russian

scientific community

under the NASA/RSA

contract

Unified approach to

environmental standards

Space Physics

Anomalous cosmic rays

Exchange of information on current U.S.

and Russian standards and exploration

of possibility of convergence on one

process and one set of standards.

Fundamental and applied medical and

physiological experiments aboard Mir

and Shuttle.

Joint U.S.-Russian experiments in biology.

Updating and advancing medical issues

of space crew safety and operational

efficiency; establishing a unified

U.S.-Russian system for medical support

in piloted missions.

Coordination of Russian and U.S.

sampling operations and data sharing.

Funding of Russian space scientists and

technologists in eight discipline areas

($20 million set-aside).

Setting appropriate standards for Phase

One program.

Three-point approved program involving

investigation of trapped anomalous

cosmic rays, coordinated measurements

with SAMPEX, and investigation of

the mean ionic charge state of solar

energetic particles. German investigators

also participating.

IEPB

IBMP, others

IBMP

IBMP, TsPK, Ministry of

Defense, RSA

IBMP

RSA’s Scientific and

Technical Advisory

Council, 50 scientific

organizations

IBMP

Scientific Research

Institute of Nuclear

Physics, Moscow State

University (NIIJAF

MGU)

Forum to be established; first meeting in 9/94,

Being implemented.

Final report released 9/94. Russian specialists

invited to a symposium in the United States on

SLS-2, held fall 1994.

Ongoing.

At 2/95 meeting held between IBMP toxicologist

and NASA, sampling methods agreed to for first

Phase One flight.

Joint meeting held in Moscow and the United

States to review process.

At 2/95 meeting held between IBMP toxicologist

and NASA, sampling methods agreed to for first

Phase One flight.

Comparison of modeling and observations

discussed during 4-5/94 JWG. Agreement on

reduction and comparison of data from 7-8/93

Cosmos flight and SAMPEX to derive the mirror

point distribution of trapped anomalous cosmic

rays. United States to prepare joint publication

on new data. Russia to provide additional data

from three COSMOS flights during the last solar

cycle.
Field and mission/title Description Russian entity Status

Coronas

Flight dynamics

Geospace

IACG-coordinated

campaigns

Long-duration balloons

Magnetospheric modeling

U.S. scientists invited to participate in

mission operations planning and

subsequent data analysis of Coronas-1,

as well as the planned Coronas-F and

Foton missions, to study solar activity.

Update IACG Handbook on Trajectories,

Mission Design and Operations; conduct

mission design for Relict-2.

lnterball-Tail and lnterball-Aurora

spacecraft planned for launch in 10/94

and spring 1995, respectively.

Coordinated observing campaigns using

existing spacecraft regarding flow of

energy in the magnetotail, collisionless

boundaries in space plasmas, and solar

events and their manifestations in

geospace.

To fly long-duration balloons carrying U.S.

payloads between North America and

Russia; NASA to provide balloons, launch,

and tracking.

Development of a mathematical

framework for describing the different

components of the Earth’s distant

magnetic field; assembling data from

space, mainly observations of the

magentic field, used for calibrating the

mathematical representations.

Institute for Earth

Magnetism,

Ionosphere and Radio

Propagation of the

Russian Academy of

Sciences (IZMIRAN)

IKI

IKI

IKI

NIIJAF MGU

IKI

Coronas-1 operational. Letter agreement finalized

1 /23/95.

Updated handbook expected to ready for

distribution 9/94; small joint team formed to

develop an electronic version.

In 4-5/94 JWG, agreement reached on U.S.

scientist participation in data analyses. NASA to

fund investigators (subject to Interball principal

investigator agreement and Interball science

team member involvement).

First campaign, led by GSFC, in fall 1993.

Second campaign to be led by ESA. Second and

third campaigns not before 1996.

First flight planned for 6/95.

Most of the work is being done by the Goddard

group (Stern, Tsyganenko, et al.); significant new

developments and publications have resulted.

JWG (4-5/94) concluded that the implementation

team had achieved its intended purpose and

decided to terminate its activity.
Solar Probe Provide science input to Elachi/Galeev IKI, RAS, IZMIRAN Technical team to prepare preliminary report by

technical team. 8/94, final report by 11/94. Joint Science Steering

Group formed at 4-5/94 JWG meeting. U.S. side

hosted workshop on ‘(Near-Sun Science with a

Small Solar Probe” in summer 1994.

TREK U.S. ultra-heavy cosmic-ray detectors IKI Three small stacks and one-third of the large

flown on Mir; NASA supplied detectors stack have been returned to Earth from Mir.

and leading data-analysis efforts, while Plans are under way to retrieve the remaining

RSA providing launch, recovery, and two-thirds of the external collector in 1995 by a

collaboration in data analysis. joint U.S./Russian EVA. Afanasiev is currently at

University of California at Berkeley to participate

in TREK data analysis for one year.

ARC = Ames Research Center

ART-P = Advanced Roentgen Telescope-Positioning

AVHRR =Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer

BATSE = Burst and Transient Source Experiment

BOREAS = Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study

COBE = Cosmic Background Explorer

DOE = Department of Energy

DSN = Deep Space Network

EOS = Earth Observing System

EUVITA = Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope Array

EVA = Extra Vehicular Activity

FEDMAC = Forest Ecosystem Dynamics Multispectral

Airborne Campaign

FIFE = First International Field Experiment

SOURCE: Office of Technology Assessment, 1995

GCC = Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission

GPS = Global Positioning System

GSFC = Goddard Space Flight Center

GTS = Global Telecommunications System

HETE = High Energy Transient Experiment

HRPT = High Resolution Picture Transmission

IGBP = International Geosphere-Biosphere Program

ISTP = International Solar Terrestrial Physics

JWG = Joint Working Group

LANL = Los Alamos National Laboratory

LDBF = Long Duration Balloon Facility

LIDAR = Light Detection and Ranging

LITE = LIDAR In-space Technology Experiment

MOU = Memorandum of Understanding

NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NOAA = National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration

PVO = Pioneer Venus Orbiter

RSA = Russian Space Agency

SAMPEX = Solar, Anomalous, Magnetospheric Explorer

SeaWiFS = Sea-Viewing Wide Field Sensor

SIGMA = French gamma ray instrument

SMM = Solar Maximum Mission

VLBA = Very Long Baseline Array

VLBI = Very Long Baseline Interferometer

WEGENER = Working Group of European Gee-scientists for

the Establishment of Networks for Earthquake Research
Appendix C:

Private Sector

U.S.-Russian

Cooperative

Projects

| 115
Business entity and nature of

Title/description relationship Russian entity U.S. entity Status

LOX-augmented nuclear

thermal rocket engine

design

NK-33 LOX/kerosene

engine

D-57 LOX/LH engine

RD-0120 LOX/LH engine

Zenit launch services

Crystal growth experiment

Joint design study.

Teaming arrangement for utilization

of NK-33 family of engines in the

U.S. market.

Teaming arrangement to improve,

market, and co-produce engine for

possible use in single-stage-to-orbit

(SSTO) sub-scale demonstrator, or

in high-performance upper stage for

existing launch vehicles.

Teaming arrangement for possible

modification for either bi-propellant

or tri-propellant cycle, to

demonstrate SSTO launchpropulsion system.

Proposed TM under which NPO

Yuzhnoye and RSC Energia would

supply the vehicle, integration

would occur in the United States,

and launch would take place “from

international waters” from a

semi-submersible platform built by

Kvaerner (Space News, Aug. 8,

1994).

Commercial contract for flight of

Energopool (Consortium)

NPO Trud, Samara

Lyulka Engine Design

Bureau

Chemiautomatics

Design-Development

Bureau (CADB)

NPO Yuzhnoye (Ukraine);

RSC Energia; Kvaerner

Shipbuilders (Norway)

RSC Energia

Aerojet; Babcock& Wilcox Pending U.S. government

policy decisions on

nuclear propulsion.

Aerojet Seeking U.S. government

funding for engine

validation tests,

Aerojet Seeking U.S. government

funding for engine

validation tests.

Aerojet Seeking U.S. government

funding for engine

validation tests.

Boeing Defense and Pending U.S. government

Space Group licensing of TAA and

decision to proceed.

Boeing Defense and Experiment flew

Boeing crystal growth experiment Space Group successfully in 1994.

on Mir, with return to Earth by

Raduga small reentry capsule.
Environmental control and

life-support systems

(ECLS) for spacecraft

Contract research and joint

feasibility studies preparatory to

International Space Station.

Scientific Research

Institute of Chemical

Engineering

(NIICHIMASH); Institute of

Biomedical Problems,

Ministry of Health

Boeing Defense and

Space Group

Boeing-purchased Mir

flight hardware being

evaluated at Boeing

facility in Huntsville, AL.

Lunar-surface operations

using a modified Phobos

lander

“Profit-sharing” and marketing

agreement.

Khrunichev

Enterprise. (ZIKh); NPO

Lavochkin; Zvezda

international Space

Enterprises (lSE), San

Diego, CA

ISE says joint

development of lunar

landers proceeding

toward early 1998 launch.

Interactive audio-video Ongoing.

links between Mir and

U.S. classrooms

Cooperative venture. RSC Energia ISE

Worldwide marketing of

carbon- and

graphite-based materials

Kaiser NllGrafit, San Leandro, CA. Scientific Research

Institute of Graphite

(NllGrafit)

All-Russia Institute of

Aviation Materials (VIAM)

Kaiser Aerospace and

Electronics Corp.

Ongoing

Worldwide marketing of

advanced composite and

metallic materials

Kaiser VIAM, San Leandro, CA Kaiser Aerospace and

Electronics Corp.

Ongoing

Space launch services

utilizing the Proton from

Baikonur

LKE International Inc. Khrunichev Enterprise;

RSC Energia

Lockheed Commercial

Space Co., Inc.

Reported to have orders

or options for 15 launches

and expectations of eight

firm orders by end of

1995.

Specialty metals for Ongoing.

aerospace, including

beryllium

Joint venture with exclusive rights to

market all ULBA beryllium products

in North America and Europe.

Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)

on “several possible areas of

cooperation in launch vehicle

activities, including launch vehicle

stages, ground support systems

and system components. ”

MOA.

Ulbinskiy Metallurgical

Production Combine

(ULBA), Kazakhstan

Loral Corp., NY; Concord

Group, CO

Launch-vehicle activities Central Specialized

Design Bureau and

PROGRESS Factory,

Samara, Russia

McDonnell Douglas Corp. Active.

Unpressurized composite

structures and various

composite fabrication

techniques and materials

Central Research Institute

for Special Machine

Building, Khotkovo,

Moscow Region, Russia

McDonnell Douglas Corp. Active.
Business entity and nature of

Title/description relationship Russian entity U.S. entity

Cooperative planetary Cooperative venture

rover development

To examine and perhaps

utilize Russian expertise in

materials, advanced

mathematics, space

systems, and extended

human flight

RD-1 70/180 engines

Docking hardware

procurement

Agreement to cooperate on a series

of space technology research

projects

Marketing of RD-170 and RD-180

variant (to be developed 8/93) to

U.S. government and ELV

manufacturers

Rockwell purchasing hardware,

spares and technical support for the

APAS androgynous docking

adapter.

Space Research Institute

(IKI), Russian Academy of

Sciences; Babakin

Research and Design

Center (Lavochkin NPO);

Scientific Research

Institute of Transportation

Machinery

(VNllTransmash)

RSA/Mechanical

Engineering Research

Institute (IMASH),

Moscow

NPO Energomash

RSC Energia

McDonnell Douglas Corp.;

Planetary Society; Brown

University

McDonnell Douglas

Government Aerospace

Pratt & Whitney

Government Engines and

Space Propulsion, West

Palm Beach, FL

Rockwell Space Systems

Division

Status

Active,

Active; joint centers

established in Moscow

and Huntington Beach,

CA.

Contract signed with

NASA Marshall Space

Flight Center for

tri-propellant engine

technology development.

Docking assembly,

including APAS, delivered

to NASA Kennedy Space

Center in late 1994.

II
Stationary plasma International Space Technology, Fakel Experimental Design Space Systems Loral, CA Company funding R&D to

thrusters for Western Inc., development and marketing Bureau; Research develop and qualify power

communications satellites joint venture (later joined by Institute of Applied processing units utilizing

SEP/France) Mechanics and Western electronics, to

Electrodynamics, Moscow qualify Russian thrusters

to Western spacecraft

requirements, and to life

test the entire system.

Resurs data Digitization and marketing of Priroda Center WorldMap International, Delivering digitized data

2m-resolution data from the Resurs Ltd. to customers; no 1994

series of Russian photographic Resurs flights, but next

satellites mission expected in

March 1995.

APAS = Androgynous Docking Adaptor (Russian acronym) LKE = Lockheed Khrunichev Energia International RSC = Russian Science Corporation

ELV = Expendable Launch Vehicle LOX = Liquid Oxygen SEP = Societe Europeene de Propulsion

LH = Liquid Hydrogen NPO = Scientific Production Organization TAA = Technical Assistance Agreement
Appendix D:

Space Cooperation with

the Soviet Union (Russia):

A French Point of View1

INTRODUCTION

pace cooperation between France and the

Soviet Union (Russia after 1991) has been

a very special venture for two countries belonging to opposing Cold War alliances.

This relationship began during the very tense decade of the 1960s, when the space race between

the United States and the Soviet Union was at its

height. It was not a short-term involvement by the

two nations, but an endeavor that lasted a quarter

of a century (until the fall of the Soviet Union) and

is still going on with Russia, though in a very different spirit. Tens of laboratories and hundreds of

scientists and engineers of both countries participated, and France took part in some of the most

important Soviet space missions, including interplanetary flights, space station activities, and advanced astrophysics missions (see table D-1).

This highly visible East-West technological

collaboration was a unique phenomenon until the

first half of the 1980s, when the Soviet space program began to open itself more broadly to Western

countries. The only larger cooperative achievement has been the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous of

1975, which was not followed by a sustained collaboration between the two superpowers.1

The Cold War is over, and what has been a very

special relationship is now part of an increasingly

global space-cooperation environment. Russia is

cooperating more and more with the multinational

European Space Agency and has joined the partners of the International Space Station (ISS) project (Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United

States). A very large Russian-American preparatory program to the ISS is under way and will include many rendezvous between the U.S. Space

Shuttle and the Russian Mir Space Station.

In this new context, what can be learned from

the long French-Soviet collaboration? Can the lessons learned during a quarter of a century of common activities be significant and useful for the

future? Before these questions are addressed, it is

useful to recognize that:

 the Russian political and economical system

has changed, but the people in the space community and the technical culture of the Russian

space industry have not really changed,

1 This appendix was written for this report by Alain Dupas of the University of Paris and the French Space Agency.

120 |
Appendix D Space Cooperation with the Soviet Union (Russia): A French Point of View 1121

1968 Araks experiments (artificial aurora borealis created by sounding rockets)

1970 French laser reflector on the Moon rover Lunakhod-1

1971 Stereo-1 experiment on Mars-3 (solar raodioastronomy)

1971 Aureol-1 satellite with Arcad-1 experiment (gamma astronomy)

1972 Sret-1 technology satellite (piggyback launched on a Soviet rocket)

1977 French satellite Signe-3 (gamma astronomy) launched by a Soviet rocket

1982 First French human flight—Jean- Loup Chretien (PVH mission) aboard Salyut-7

1984-5 Flights of Vega-1/2 space probes (with releases of balloons in Venus atmosphere and

encounters with Halley’s comet)

1988 Third French human flight (Jean- Loup Chretien, Aragatz mission), including an EVA (the

second French spaceflight was conducted aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle)

1988 Phobos flights toward Mars

1989 Launch of Granat satellite with French gamma telescope Sigma

1990 Launch of Gamma satellite

1992 Fourth French human flight (Michel Tognini, Antares mission)

1993 Fifth French human flight (Jean-Pierre Haignere, Altair mission) —. — —

1

This Iist does not include numerous experiments conducted on Soviet (Russian) Scientific, meteorological, and recoverable satellites

EVA = Extra Vehicluar Activity; NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SOURCE: Alain Dupas, 1995.

■ for a long time French-Soviet space cooperation was the main window of contact between

the Russian space community and the Western

world, and

■ French scientists and engineers have played an

important role in introducing their Russian colleagues to the international space community,

particularly in the field of planetary exploration.

THE RATIONALE FOR FRENCH-SOVIET

SPACE COOPERATION

❚ The Political Origin of the Cooperation

There is no doubt today that Russia’s participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program had a political origin. That was also the case

for the beginning of the space cooperation between France and the Soviet Union in 1966. The

President of France, Charles de Gaulle, was very

concerned about ensuring French strategic autonomy, although the fact that France was part of the

Western alliance was very clear. He had engaged

France in the development of nuclear weapons

and ballistic missiles (the “Force de Frappe”) and

had decided that his country would leave the

NATO integrated military command. Space was a

small, but nevertheless significant, part of this

drive toward French strategic autonomy; President de Gaulle was instrumental in the creation of

the French Space Agency (CNES) in 1962 and in

the development of the subsequent French national space program. In 1965, France became the

third country to launch an artificial satellite on its

own vehicle.

It is in this context that Soviet Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko proposed to President de Gaulle in Moscow on April 27, 1965, that

the two countries should examine the possibility

of space cooperation between them. This opening

was followed on July 1, 1965, by an official memorandum given to the French ambassador in Moscow. For the Soviets, this proposal was certainly

a way to establish visible links with a Western

power in a politically significant field and to reduce Soviet isolation in the Cold War context. For

France, it was a way to demonstrate independence

from the United States and to confirm its willing-
122 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

ness to take a special position in the East-West

relationship. It was by no means a disengagement

from French-American space cooperation, which

was doing very well at that time—the first French

scientific satellite was, in fact, orbited by an

American rocket in 1965.

❚ The Visit of General de Gaulle to

Baikonur and the Agreement of

June 30, 1966

Charles de Gaulle visited the Soviet Union again

in June 1966 and was invited to travel to the thensecret Baikonur Space Center, where he attended,

along with General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev, on June 22, the

launching of a rocket. He was the first foreigner

invited to Baikonur and would be the only one for

nearly a decade, until the preparation of the Apollo-Soyuz flight.

This visit was closely followed by the signing

of an agreement on French-Soviet space cooperation. This was done on June 30, 1966 by French

Minister for Foreign Affairs Maurice Couve de

Murville and his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko. The agreement stressed that:

The Governments of [France and the Soviet

Union]:

 recognizing the importance of the study and

exploration of outer space;

 considering that the cooperation between

France and USSR in this field will enable the

extension of the cooperation between the two

countries and will be an expression of the

traditional friendship between French and

Soviet peoples [. . .];

have decided to prepare and implement a program of scientific and technical cooperation between France and USSR for the peaceful study

and exploration of outer space.

❚ The Converging Scientific and

Technical Interest of the Two Countries

The political rationale and the very high level of

support it created were essential to the beginning

of the cooperation. It could not, however, have enabled, by itself, the establishment of a long-term,

fruitful relationship. Converging scientific and

technical interests were fundamental for that.

From that point of view, the French-Soviet

space cooperation:

 opened a lot of unique opportunities for French

scientists and engineers (more experiments,

large scientific spacecraft, lunar and planetary

probes, recoverable payloads, manned spacecraft) complementary to national, European,

and American opportunities;

 enabled the Soviet space community to improve the scientific value of its satellites and

space probes by accommodating French experiments using advanced technologies; and

 enabled the Soviet scientific space community

to have better contacts with the French and,

through them, the Western space science community.

THE WORKING OF FRENCH-SOVIET

(RUSSIAN) SPACE COOPERATION

❚ Reliance on Simple Procedures

The 1966 agreement was (and still is in many

ways) the basis of a very long and successful

working relationship that relied on very simple

procedures:

 Projects were approved at a yearly meeting of

the French-Soviet (Russian) space cooperation

committee, alternatively in France and the Soviet Union (Russia); this process is still going

on.

 The principle was (and still is, mainly) “no exchange of funds.” Each party pays for its own

expenses and scientific results are shared; the

only exceptions are the human spaceflights,

where a participation fee is paid to the Soviet

(Russian) partner.

❚ The Learning Process

Some difficulties have been encountered in

learning to work with the Soviets. The main issues

were:

 meeting the right counterparts—at the beginning, contacts were organized by the Intercosmos Council (a body of the Academy of
Appendix D Space Cooperation with the Soviet Union (Russia): A French Point of View | 123

Sciences) and did not involve the space industry, which was surrounded by secrecy,

 gaining access to industrial and launch facilities, and

 knowing the exact status of a project.

For the French specialists, working with the

Soviets in the second half of the 1960s was really

a “cultural shock,” as can be heard in a comment

by Jean-Pierre Causse, former head of the CNES

Technical Center, about a common satellite project at the end of the 1960s:

[Our experience] was based on the cooperation with NASA (FR-1 satellite and other projects), which was very open. [In the Soviet

Union] everything was fuzzy. Our Soviet counterparts were extremely cautious, even if they

showed a lot of good will. The academic-diplomatic procedures involved heavy, formal, and

infrequent meetings, and the work progressed

slowly.

With a lot of patience and good will, the situation has slowly improved. Major progress occurred during the 1980s with the involvement of

a new organization representing the space industry, Glavkosmos; there was more direct access to

Soviet space hardware, and much more access to

Soviet space facilities. These improvements have

continued with the transition from the Soviet

Union to Russia and the creation of the Russian

Space Agency (RSA), which works very much

like NASA or CNES.

However, the collapse of the Soviet Union has

created new problems that were totally unknown

before: budgetary, programmatic, and procurement difficulties for the Russian partner, which no

longer benefits from the high priority it had in the

past and suffers from the general degradation of

the economy; this is particularly true for scientific

projects.

❚ The Continuity of Political Involvement

The regularly renewed support of the political actors at the highest level has been an important factor in the continuation and progress of the space

cooperation between the Soviet Union (Russia)

and France. The following events have been important:

 In April 1979, Brezhnev himself proposed to

French President Giscard d’Estaing the conduct of a manned spaceflight aboard Salyut-7.

 In 1985, a Mitterand-Brezhnev meeting gave

the two leaders the opportunity to agree on a second joint spaceflight (Mitterand attended the

launching).

 In July 1989, the principle of a long-term

(10-year) agreement on manned spaceflight

was approved by Minister Paul Quiles and Soviet Vice President Lev Voronin; the agreement

was signed by CNES, RSA, and NPO Energia

in December 1989. Four flights were planned

(in 1993, 1996, 1998, and 2000); the first one

has already been completed.

The French-Soviet space cooperation has survived the many political crises of the Cold War,

such as the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979,

which happened while preparations for the first

French-Soviet human spaceflight were under

way. In that case, the French government decided

to go on with the project but to put the focus on the

technical side of the flight and to give it a very low

political profile.

❚ The Reliability of the Soviet (Russian)

Partner

The Soviets (Russians) were extremely reliable

partners until the end of the 1980s. No project that

had been started within the cooperative framework had been canceled by the Soviet side (a few

were canceled by France). The first failure was encountered in 1988 with the Phobos project (although French scientists still obtained very good

results).

The situation has recently changed due to the

very large difficulties encountered by the Russian

Academy of Sciences in funding and supporting

scientific space projects. The cancellation of the

Mars ’94 flight and the difficult preparation of the

Mars ’96 mission are consequences of this degradation.
124 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Up to now, cooperative human spaceflights

have always been conducted exactly according to

the schedule fixed months before the launching.

Some procurement problems have manifested

themselves recently, but human missions seem to

be relatively protected from the degradation of the

general economical situation in Russia. The question is, however, how long can this last?

CONCLUSION

The Soviets (Russians) have been very reliable

partners in space cooperation with their main past

partner, France. The main ingredients responsible

for the continuous success of this relationship

over more than 25 years seem to be:

 strong and frequently renewed political support

at the highest level,

 strong common scientific and technical interest,

 a long-term commitment able to survive political (and technical, if they arise) crises, and

 a lot of patience and good will to deal with the

different social and technical cultures.

Could these recipes work for very large cooperative efforts such as the International Space Station

program?
ndex

A

Aerojet, 58, 81

Agreement on Cooperation in the Peaceful

Exploration and Use of Outer Space (1972), 43

Almaz satellites, 36, 58

Angara heavy-lift launch vehicle, 39

Anser Corporation, 17

Apollo 16 astronauts, 43

Apollo program announcement, 42

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, 9, 10, 42-44

Ariane 4 and 5, 64, 81

Arianespace, 66, 77

ASAT program, 34-35

ASTP. See Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

B

Baikonur Cosmodrome, 17, 21, 28-30, 35-37, 72, 75

Baudry, Patrick, 62

Bion satellites, 37, 53, 55

Boeing, 58, 68, 76

Brain drain risk, 79-80, 82-84

Brezhnev, Leonid, 61

Buran space shuttle, 37, 72

Bush, George, 47

C

Canada

cooperative ventures with the United States,

10-11

International Space Station participation, 15, 49,

65, 76

SARSAT participation, 43

Carter, Jimmy, 43

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union, 27

Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine

Building, 33

CEOS. See Committee on Earth Observation

Satellites

Chernomyrdin, Viktor, 14, 30, 33, 53, 73, 75

China launch trade agreement, 66, 75

Chretien, Jean-Loup, 62

CIS. See Commonwealth of Independent States

CIS space agency, 27

Clinton Administration, 15, 17, 18, 48, 64, 65-66,

67-68, 77. See also Gore, Al

COCOM. See Coordinating Committee on Export

Controls

Cold War

competition with the Former Soviet Union, 5-6,

12, 41

possibility of resumption, 17

Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby mission, 73

Commercial cooperation, 3, 17-18, 56-58, 66

Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, 48,

65-66

Commonwealth of Independent States members, 27

Communications systems

cooperation, 42, 56

Russian, 36, 37

Cooperation issues. See also Scientific and technical

cooperation

benefits of cooperation in space, 2, 8, 14, 58-60

commercial cooperation, 3, 17-18, 56-58, 66

contingencies for future success, 1-2, 7-8, 22

domestic impact, 80-82

findings, 7-23

foreign policy benefits and risks, 2, 3, 22, 64-66

government role, 75-77

opportunities for expanded cooperation, 67-71

other countries’ experiences, 61-66

private sector history, 56-60

proliferation concerns, 82-84

public sector history, 41-60

risks and risk management, 22, 47, 71-75

Coordinating Committee on Export Controls, 18

Core Technologies, 58

Cosmodromes. See Baikonur Cosmodrome; Plesetsk

Cosmodrome

COSPAS-SARSAT, 43-44

| 125
126 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

D

Data-export authorization, 76

DeGaulle, Charles, 21, 61

Duma legislative assembly, 20, 27-28, 39

E

Early-warning systems, 35, 37

Earth Observing System, 48

Earth sciences and environmental modeling, 12, 42,

47

Echo II satellite, 42

Eisenhower Administration, 42

Ekran satellites, 36

Electro satellite, 37

Electronic Ocean Reconnaissance satellites, 35

Environmental research, 12, 21, 43, 46

EORSAT. See Electronic Ocean Reconnaissance

satellites

EOS. See Earth Observing System

EOSAT, 58

EOSDIS. See EOS Data and Information System

ESA. See European Space Agency

Euromir ’95 flight, 63

European Space Agency

cooperative ventures with the Soviet Union and

Russia, 3, 21, 59, 61, 63-64

cooperative ventures with the United States,

10-11

European Robotic Arm, 63

Giotto project, 44

International Space Station participation, 15, 49,

51, 65, 76

Export-control restrictions, 18

F

FGB. See Functional Cargo Block module

“Fire and Ice” mission, 48

Fletcher, James, 43

Flight Control Center at Kaliningrad, 33

Foreign policy benefits and risks, 2, 3, 22, 64-66

Former Soviet Union. See also Commonwealth of

Independent States members

Cold War competition, 5-6

cooperative ventures, 6-7

nations, 27

France

experience in cooperating with Russia, 3, 21, 59,

61

human spaceflight, 61-63

International Space Station participation, 65

SARSAT participation, 43

FSU. See Former Soviet Union

Functional Cargo Block module, 52, 54, 69

G

Gagarin, Yurii, 25, 27, 42

Galileo project, 71

Gals satellites, 36

Gamma missions, 62

Geodetic satellites, 37

Geostationary Operational Meteorological Satellite,

37

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, 83

Geyser satellites, 36

Glavkosmos, 31, 56-57

Goldin, Daniel, 14, 47, 48, 50

GOMS. See Geostationary Operational

Meteorological Satellite

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 46

Gore, Al, 14, 53, 73

Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. See U.S.-Russian

Commission on Economic and Technological

Cooperation

Gorizont satellite, 36

Granat missions, 62

H

Halley’s Comet project, 44, 62, 65

Human spaceflight

ESA cooperation with Russia, 63

first human in space, 25

French cooperation with Russia, 21, 61-63

long-duration experience, 13-15, 34

Russian experience, 33-34

studies in the adaptation of humans to the space

environment, 34

support structure in low Earth orbit, 15

U.S. cooperation with Russia, 2, 49

Human Spaceflight Agreement, 49

I

IACG. See Inter-Agency Consultative Group

IGY. See International Geophysical Year

IKI. See Russian Institute of Space Research

IMEWG. See International Mars Exploration

Working Group

India, technology transfer issue, 55, 83

INMARSAT, 56, 57

Instrument flights on Russian spacecraft, 2, 13, 44

Intelligence satellites. See Reconnaissance programs

INTELSAT, 56

Inter-Agency Consultative Group, 44, 48, 65

Intercontinental ballistic missiles

possible conversions, 39, 83-84

warning systems, 35, 37
Index | 127

Intergovernmental Accord on Scientific/Technical

and Economic Cooperation (France/USSR), 61-62

Intergovernmental Agreement on Cooperation in the

Permanently Manned Civil Space Station, 64

International Geophysical Year, 42

International Mars Exploration Working Group, 48

International Solar Polar Mission, 73

International Solar Terrestrial Physics Program, 48

International Space Station

announcement of cooperation, 14

Clinton Administration policy, 15

complexity of cooperative arrangements, 74

drawings, 52, 53, 54

European-built hardware budget, 3

future, 74-75

international partners, 15, 49, 51, 65

potential benefits to Russia, 20-21

potential benefits to the United States, 13-15

Russia’s technical contributions, 2, 7, 15-17, 34,

68

U.S. components, 14

International Space Station Program Implementation

Plan, 49

International Traffic in Arms Regulations, 57, 76

ISTP. See International Solar Terrestrial Physics

Program

ITAR. See International Traffic in Arms Regulations

J

Japan

cooperative ventures with the United States,

10-11

International Space Station participation, 49, 51,

76

Joint missions using Russian launch capabilities, 2,

12, 13, 15-18, 21-23, 56, 66, 67-68

Joint Working Group structure, 43, 46, 47-48

JWG. See Joint Working Group structure

K

Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics, 58

Kazakhstan

Baikonur Cosmodrome, 17, 21, 28-30, 35-37, 72,

75

space assets and capabilities, 21, 46

Kazhegeldin, Akezhan, 30, 75

Kennedy, John F., 42

Khrunichev Enterprise, 20, 52, 54. See also

Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia International

KONUS gamma-ray-burst detector, 48

Koptev, Yuri, 14, 31, 47, 48, 50

Kosmos satellites, 35, 37

Kosygin, Alexei, 43

L

Launch success comparisons between the U.S. and

the U.S.S.R., 25, 26

Launch vehicles and systems developed by Russia,

2, 12, 13, 15-18, 21-23, 35. See also Baikonur

Cosmodrome

payload capabilities, 35, 38

Launch vehicles and systems developed by the

United States, 18, 23

Launch-services agreements, 18, 56, 66, 67-68

Leninsk, Kazakhstan, 17, 35, 36, 75

LEO. See Low Earth orbit

Life sciences, 14, 37

LKE International. See Lockheed-KhrunichevEnergia International

Lockheed Aerospace

marketing of Russian launch services, 58

payload processing facility, 37

purchase of FGB module, 52, 54

Lockheed-Khrunichev-Energia International, 17, 37,

58, 68, 72, 77, 81

Low Earth orbit, 15, 34-35, 68

Luch satellites, 36

Luna planetary probe, 69, 70

M

Mapping systems, 35

Mars exploration, 46, 47-48, 62, 68, 69, 72, 73

McDonnell Douglas, 58

Mechanical Engineering Research Institute, 58

Medical research

cooperation, 43

Space Biomedicine, Life Support, and

Microgravity Joint Working Group, 12, 37, 44,

47, 56

Meteor-3 polar-orbiting weather spacecraft

(Russian), 13, 37, 46, 69

Meteor-2 weather spacecraft (Russian), 37

Meteor-3M polar-orbiting weather spacecraft

(Russian), 13

Meteorological satellites. See Weather satellites

Minsk Space Agreement, 27

Mir Space Station

continuing usefulness, 25, 69-70

engineering and scientific experiments, 9, 15, 34

ESA objectives, 21, 63

French joint projects, 62

launch of core module, 14

Mir complex with docked Progress-M and Soyuz-TM spacecraft, 50

Space Shuttle rendezvous, 9-10, 14, 47, 51, 52,

54

U.S. private-sector joint projects, 56
128 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

Missile Technology Control Regime, 20, 22, 68, 73,

77, 82-83

Mission to Planet Earth, 47

MNTSKI. See Russian Interdepartmental Scientific

and Technical Council on Space Research

Molniya satellites, 37

Molniya-type orbits, 35, 36, 37

MOM. See Russian Ministry of General Machine

Building

MTCR. See Missile Technology Control Regime

N

NASA. See National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

cooperative agreements with RSA, 48, 49, 51,

54, 73, 75

cooperative agreements with the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, 43-46, 47

creation of as civilian space program, 26

Deep Space Network, 44, 71

International Space Station redesign, 49

Mir Space Station joint experiments with the

U.S. Space Shuttle, 9-10, 14, 47, 51, 52, 54

policy on international agreements, 75-76

no-exchange-of-funds policy, 53, 60, 67-68

purchase of goods and services from Russia, 2,

20-21

summary of programs with Russia and their

costs, 56

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

65-66

National Space Transportation Policy, 67, 82

Navigation satellites, 37

Newly Independent States, 30, 83

NIS. See Newly Independent States

Nixon, Richard M., 43

NOAA. See National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

NPO Energia. See Scientific Production

Organization Energia

O

Okean-O satellite, 36

Ozone layer research, 13, 37, 46

P

Peenemünde rocket scientists, 26

Phobos spacecraft, 69

Photon materials-processing platform (Russian), 27,

37

Photo-reconnaissance programs. See

Reconnaissance programs; Remote sensing

systems

Planetary science, 12, 44, 46, 62

Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 35, 37, 39

Pluto exploration, 48, 68

Political linkage potential, 9, 22

Potok satellites, 36

Pratt and Whitney, 58, 81

Private sector history of cooperation

entrepreneurs prior to 1991, 56-57

lessons, 58-60

U.S. and Russian industry working together,

57-58

Progress-M spacecraft, 50

Proton launch vehicles, 17, 18, 25, 37, 56, 57, 68,

75, 81

Public sector history of cooperation. See also

Human spaceflight; International Space Station

civil space agreements: 1971-1982, 42-43

current cooperation in space science and applications, 46-48

the early years: 1958-1971, 42

the financial dimension, 53-56

glasnost and the end of the Soviet era:

1987-1991, 46

hiatus and improvisation: 1982-1987, 43-46

overview, 41-42

R

R-7 ballistic missile, 26

Raduga satellites, 36

RAS. See Russian Academy of Sciences

Reagan Administration, 43, 45-46

Remote sensing systems

multilateral, 48, 65

Russian, 8, 35, 36, 37, 56, 70

Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of

the U.S. Space Program, 47

Resurs-F satellites, 35, 36

Reverse linkage issue, 72-73

Robotic technology, 43, 46, 47, 61, 63

Rocket science development, 26

Rockwell International, 51-52

Rokot booster, 37, 39

RSA. See Russian Space Agency

RSC Energia. See Russian Space Corporation

Energia

Russia

cultural differences with the United States, 10-11

legal framework for business, 59, 71, 74

membership in CIS, 27

military conversion, 18, 39
Index | 129

political and economic instabilities, 10, 46, 47

private companies, 19, 33

space policy, 19, 30, 57. See also Russian space

capabilities

Russian Academy of Sciences, 19, 47

Russian Institute of Space Research, 19

Russian Interdepartmental Expert Commission, 19

Russian Interdepartmental Scientific and Technical

Council on Space Research, 19

Russian Military Industrial Commission, 27

Russian Military Space Forces, 18, 29, 30

Russian Ministry of Defense, 18

Russian Ministry of General Machine Building, 19,

27, 56

Russian Ministry of Science, 19, 30

Russian reconnaissance programs, 27, 34-35

Russian Space Agency, 13, 19, 30-33, 47, 48, 49,

51, 52, 54, 63, 73

Russian space capabilities

antisatellite systems, 34-35

civil space systems, 34, 36

current space activities, 33-39

deep-space communications, 70-71

history, 27-30

human resources, 70

launch systems, 2, 12, 13, 15-18, 21-23, 35,

66-68

national security space systems, 34-35, 37

1993 space budget distribution, 34

onboard technologies and instrumentation, 69-70

privatization of space enterprises, 33

schedule maintenance, 69

spacecraft, 69-70. See also specific spacecraft by

name

strengths and weaknesses in space program,

12-13

Russian Space Corporation Energia, 20, 33, 63, 68

Russian State Committee on Defense Industries, 33

Russian-Kazakhstan agreement on use of Baikonur

Cosmodrome, 17, 75

S

SAGE. See Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas

Experiment

Salyut program. See also Mir Space Station

beginning of, 33

French human spaceflight mission, 62

lessons learned, 33-34

Salyut-Space Shuttle program, 42, 43, 45

SARSAT, 43-44

Satellites. See also Remote sensing systems;

Specific satellites by name

design life of Soviet satellites, 26

first satellite, 25

geosynchronous-orbit satellites, 35, 36

operational Russian satellite systems, 36-37

Russian replacement capability, 26

telemetry and tracking by Russia, 28

Scientific and technical cooperation

astronomy and astrophysics, 12

earth sciences and environmental modeling, 12

solar system exploration, 12

Scientific Production Organization Energia, 33, 47,

58, 63, 68

SDIO. See Strategic Defense Initiative Organization

Search-and-rescue systems, 43-45, 47, 49

Shuttle. See Space Shuttle

Solar research, 48

Soviet space program history, 25-27

Soyuz spacecraft, 17, 18, 37

Soyuz-Apollo program, 42-44

Soyuz-TM spacecraft, 15, 16, 47, 49, 50

Space biomedicine, 12, 43, 44, 47

Space science, 2, 21, 65-66

Space Shuttle

French joint ventures, 62

Mir Space Station rendezvous, 9-10, 14, 47, 51,

54

Salyut Space Station joint experiments, 42, 43,

45, 51

Space Shuttle-Salyut program, 42, 43, 45, 51

Space station. See International Space Station

Space Station Freedom, 47, 49

Spectrum-X mission, 72

Sputnik satellite, 25, 34

Start-1 satellites, 37, 39

Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, 57

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment, 13, 48

Svobodny ballistic-missile launch site, 30, 39

T

Technology transfer issue, 55, 76-77, 79-80, 82-84

Telecommunications satellites, 36, 56

TOMS. See Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer

Topaz 2 space nuclear-reactor hardware, 57

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, 13, 37, 46, 48,

69

Tsyklon spacecraft, 35, 37
130 | U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Space

U

Ukraine

launch vehicles, 58, 68, 76

space assets and capabilities, 21, 46, 72, 75

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

dissolution, 27, 46

space program history, 25-33

space program management structure,

1992-1993, 31

space program management structure,

1960s-1980s, 28

United Nations

Outer Space Committee, 42

Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of

States in Exploration and Use of Outer Space

including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,

42

U.S. civilian space program

overview, 5-7, 26

U.S. Congress

early calls for scientific collaboration with Russia, 42

International Space Station funding, 20-21

U.S. Department of Commerce, 18, 76, 82

U.S. Department of Defense, 57, 66, 82

U.S. employment, effects of cooperation with

Russia, 22-23, 79-82

U.S. State Department, 18, 57, 68

U.S.-Russian Commission on Economic and

Technological Cooperation, 48-53, 55, 58, 73

V

V-2 rockets, 26

Vega missions, 44, 62, 70

Venus exploration, 12, 44, 62, 69, 70

Venera Venus landings, 12, 44, 69, 70

VKS. See Russian Military Space Forces

Vostok spacecraft, 27, 35

VPK. See Russian Military Industrial Commission

W

Weather satellites

data sharing, 11-12, 42-43

Meteor-3 polar-orbiting weather spacecraft (Russian), 13, 46, 69

Russian, 37

Wind spacecraft, 48

Worldmap International, 58

X

X-33 reusable-launcher demonstration vehicle, 68

Yeltsin, Boris, 27, 47, 75

Y

Yevpatoria antennas, 70-71

Z

Zenit launch vehicles, 17, 35, 37, 68

Zenit photographic-reconnaissance spacecraft, 27