by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

On Tuesday, Russia celebrated the 61st anniversary of the Soviet Union’s launch of the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, with a presidential visit to a scandal-plagued spaceport, a pledge to stay the course in the face of international sanctions over the Ukraine invasion, and an initiative to fly a citizen of one of the nation’s closest allies into space.

“Everything that we’ve seen during our visit to Vostochny, all successes in space exploration achieved in recent years prove that our country retains its leadership in space industry, is one of the leaders in this area,” President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.

PARIS (ESA PR) — Following the Russian aggression against Ukraine, ESA’s Director General has initiated a comprehensive review of all activities currently undertaken in cooperation with Russia and Ukraine. The objective is to determine the possible consequences of this new geopolitical context for ESA programmes and activities and to create a more resilient and robust space infrastructure for Europe.

The ESA Council on 13 April acknowledged the following findings and took the following decisions.

Translated by Google Translate

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — On Wednesday, January 26, 2022, the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the Council on Space, which was attended by representatives of the State Corporation Roscosmos and the Scientific and Production Association named after S.A. Lavochkin (Khimki).

Alexander Shirshakov, First Deputy General Director – General Designer of NPO named after Lavochkin, spoke about the progress of work on the creation of automatic interplanetary stations Luna-25 and ExoMars 2022. The Luna-25 apparatus, which is to go to the Moon in July 2022, is at the stage completion of ground experimental testing.