Russian Space Chief Says Satellite Hacking Would Justify War: Report

Russia will treat any hacking of its satellites as a justification for war, the head of the country's space agency was quoted as saying in a news report on Wednesday. Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin denied media reports that Russian satellite control centres have already been hacked amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, while warning against any attempts to do so, Interfax news agency reported.

"Offlining the satellites of any country is actually a casus belli, a cause for war," Interfax quoted him as saying.

Rogozin also said his agency wanted British-based tech firm OneWeb to provide guarantees that its satellites are not going to be used against Russia, Interfax added.

Without these, Rogozin said Russia will cancel the planned March 4 launch of 36 OneWeb satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan, without compensating OneWeb, the Russian news agency reported.

In other Roscosmos-related news, Elon Musk has said that SpaceX would save the International Space Station (ISS) from crashing after Rogozin warned that the crippling sanctions announced by the West against Moscow could lead to the ISS falling into the US, Europe, or India.

In a Twitter thread, Rogozin had warned the sanctions announced in response to the Russian military action in Ukraine have the potential to destroy the cooperation on ISS. He had asked who would save the space station from an “uncontrolled deorbit” if Russia were to pull out of the cooperation. Musk responded by simply tweeting an image of SpaceX.