Bill Ingalls / NASA
O cosmonauta russo Oleg Artemyev
It is very difficult to imagine a situation in which an experienced cosmonaut could “unintentionally commit such a serious violation”.
The Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was removed from SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission for alleged violations of United States national security rules, the media reported.
Artemyev, an experienced cosmonaut from the Russian space agency Roscosmos, was expected to join the mission, with four crew members, whose launch to the International Space Station was scheduled for February, says the .
Artemyev was recently replaced by fellow Russian Andrei Fedyayeva “decision taken in connection with the transfer of Oleg Artemyev to another position”, Roscosmos officials said on Tuesday in a post on Telegram.
“Andrei Fedyaev is a pilot-cosmonaut and Hero of Russiawho joined the cosmonaut corps on April 25, 2013″, details the statement.
But the statement doesn’t tell the whole story, according to the Russian investigative website, which says that Artemyev, 54, was removed from Crew-12 for ITAR violations (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), a North American law that aims to protect national securityrestricting the disclosure of sensitive information and technology.
“The cosmonaut will have photographed SpaceX documentation and then used the phone to export classified informationa», writes The Insider, which quotes launch analyst Gregory Trishkin.
“My contacts confirm that a violation has occurred and that a interdepartmental investigation“, Trishkin told The Insider. “Removing someone from a mission two and a half months before launch, without a clear explanation, It’s more of an indirect sign, but it’s revealing“.
“It is very difficult to imagine a situation in which an experienced cosmonaut could, unintentionally commit such a serious violation“, adds the analyst.
The Insider also cites a report on Sunday on “Yura, Forgive Me!”, a Russian channel about space flights on Telegram, according to which the violations will have occurred last weekwhen Artemyev was in training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The cosmonaut allegedly photographed SpaceX engines and other sensitive technologies with the cell phone.
Crew-12 is the 12th operational astronaut mission that SpaceX carries out for the ISS under a contract with NASA. Space.com contacted SpaceX and NASA for comment on the Artemyev case, but has not yet received a response.
Artemyev spent a total of 560 days in spaceover three long-duration missions on the ISS, in March 2014, March 2018 and March 2022. This last flight began just a month after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which triggered a war that continues to this day.
In July 2022, Roscosmos published photographs of Artemyev and two fellow cosmonauts on the ISS a hold the flags of two territories pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
NASA and the director of the European Space Agency (ESA) condemned the scenario, stressing that the orbiting laboratory should not be used as a research platform. wartime propaganda.
The launch of Crew-12 is scheduled for no earlier than February 15th. In addition to Fedyayev, the mission will take a French astronaut to the ISS Sophie Adenotfrom ESA, and two more astronauts yet to be appointed, for a stay of around six months on the ISS.
