The project failed to take off because of the complexity, chaos, economic collapse, and turbulence that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It would sound incredulous that what’s today a symbol of Russia’s enviable spacing prowess and a reminder of its glory days in the 1960s (a series of firsts that triggered the space race and transformed science, technology, and innovation forever), was slated for replacement by another more powerful and advanced rocket in 1985. Post the 1970s, space cooperation between NASA and Soviet Union remained steady over the decades, even at the peak of the Cold War and what appeared to be the ultimate denouement –the fall of the USSR. In the past space has largely been immune from geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia. One of the fallouts of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and sanctions against Moscow has been Russia’s refusal to fly OneWeb satellites and carry out other launch projects aboard Soyuz. Or to borrow a more commonplace analogy, vodka is in spirits. Soyuz is as popular a Russian name in rocketry and spacecraft as Kalashnikov is in rifles, or MiG is in aircrafts.
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