Until June of last year, Indian astronauts were training at the Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut center near Moscow. Space agencies of India (ISRO) and Russia (Roscosmos) they collaborated. However, in June last year, the Government Narendra Modi He signed the Artemis Treaty. A text spearheaded by the United States that lays out the common rules for the exploration of space, from the Moon to Mars or asteroids. Spain, France and Italy also participated, among 25 other countries.
Now Indian astronauts will also receive training Texas Johnson Space Center. New Delhi has also agreed to send a joint mission with the United States to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. India aligns with the US and moves away from Russia.
Last Wednesday, August 23, at 2:30 p.m. Spanish time, the Indian space agency reached a historic milestone. He managed to “conquer” the South Pole of the Moon. The Vikram (Brave) lander left the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and landed on the dark side of the Earth satellite. It was the first time in history that mankind had succeeded in performing such a complex maneuver. And it was the first successful step in his long-running lunar career, whose ultimate goal was to build settlements outside of our planet.
Artemis Agreements for Russia Washington’s attempt to colonize the Moon. Moscow has its own space plans for the next few years. To begin with, in 2024 Russia will withdraw from the ISS, something it announced in 2021 but only reinforced by its international isolation following the illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Vladimir Putin’s government has a long-term development plan for the exploration and exploitation of the Moon, announced three years ago. First, Putting the lunar module into orbit Before 2025 it will place it on the earth’s satellite, and before 2034 it will build a moon base. Six years later, in 2040, he was supposed to build a manned lunar exploration system. They decided to advance the launch of the lunar module to prevent India from getting ahead of them. However, Luna-25 crashed into the lunar surface after communications were lost.
Sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, Failure for Roscosmos. After the EU imposed sanctions on Russia in February 2022, they had to make do without a camera manufactured by the European Space Agency (ESA) to include in the lunar module. Airbus company.
Now they are waiting for help from China. They signed a cooperation agreement with the Asian giant. China has its own mission: Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Russia has joined the project, which has been in operation for two years, and the same goal is to build a base on the Moon before 2036.
The European Union is also joining Artemis. international spaceflight program Spacecraft led by NASA and private space flight companies, EU, Japan, Canada, Israel and Australia. The goal of rediscovering the Moon and bringing the first woman and the next man to the Moon’s south pole by the end of 2024.2
ESA will build the Gateway, two modules of the small station that will be placed in lunar orbit to house the astronauts. Within the scope of the agreement, a European is expected to set foot on the Moon in mid-2030. More than 8 percent of Spain will contribute to the project, which is a project of approximately 15 billion euros.
Therefore, in the new space race, authoritarian regimes unite against democratic regimes.
One hundred countries with search interests
Running for years reorganization of global spatial geopoliticsJulie Klinger, professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware, says in an article in Cidob:
in 1967 132 countries including Russia, China and USAThey signed the Outer Space Treaty (OST). They set out the principles by which activities related to the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, should be governed. Only peaceful use of Space, defined as the common heritage of all humanity, was allowed. Among other things, it prevented the first person to reach a place on a star from claiming it. Since India was the first to reach the Moon, neither the south pole of the Moon nor the USA can claim the flag planted by Neil Armstrong. This agreement allowed, for example, the development of the satellite industry in global Earth orbit.
But things are changing now, says Klinger. Firstly, Competition Law in Commercial Areas is EnactedWritten by Barack Obama in 2015. “Contrary to the spirit and substance of the OST, this law recognizes the exclusive seizure of any resource discovered in space by U.S. citizens,” Klinger writes. Four years later, the US Congress authorized the creation of a “Space Force”, and Donald Trump authorized private sector exploitation of mining resources, both on the Moon and on other planets.
Mankind has already discovered six minerals on the surface of the terrestrial satellite. The last one by China last year. i called him Change site-(Y) Because it contains helium-3, it could be a power source for future spacecraft or generators on Earth. This gas is very rare on earth. Scientists see it as a candidate to be the fuel for future nuclear fusion energy (the fusion of atoms), the equivalent of uranium in fission (the energy produced by splitting atoms in power plants or nuclear bombs).
In this new scheme (Russia-China vs. USA, EU and others), it leaves out many countries, especially the underdeveloped ones. However, there are more than a hundred States with more or less advanced space exploration programs. have plans to build African Space Agency, Headquartered in Egypt, nearly twenty countries on the continent have their own agencies.
“This impressive proliferation of worldwide space commitments is exactly what the OST envisioned,” writes Klinger. “A critical geopolitics of spaceWe must go beyond the person who built the first base on the Moon, and more importantly, understand how space can help us solve the problems of the planet.”