(Moscow) The Kremlin on Monday denied losing ground to the United States in the space race, after the spectacular success of the American company SpaceX which caught up with its megarocket Starship during a test flight, a success which contrasts with recent Russian failures.
Posted at 8:51 a.m.
The images went around the world: during a delicate maneuver carried out for the first time, the company SpaceX managed on Sunday to recover the first stage of Starshipwhich could constitute a decisive step towards the reuse of this heavy launcher.
The Russian space sector has suffered for years from chronic underfunding, corruption scandals and repeated failures such as the loss of the lunar probe. Luna-25 in August 2023.
Asked by the press about a possible delay by Moscow, at a time when the American private space industry is developing at high speed and when China and India have appeared in the game of space powers, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, said he “disagreed”.
“The development [russe] is dynamic enough,” “fast enough,” he said, without further explanation.
According to him, “space research is a” long process which “cannot take place directly before your eyes”.
Dmitri Peskov also praised “significant investments”, even if Russia plans to devote around 40% of its federal budget to defense and security in 2025 to support its offensive in Ukraine.
It still wants to eventually build its own orbital station to replace the aging International Space Station (ISS) and resume missions to the Moon.
Despite the conflict in Ukraine, space is one of the last areas in which forms of Russian-Western cooperation remain.
“We are observing with great interest the evolution of the American space program,” noted Mr. Peskov on Monday. “We are following all information on the subject.”
As part of international sanctions against Russia, the West ended its partnership with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, but Soyuz spacecraft still remain one of the only means of sending crews to the ISS.
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