Last month, astronauts from Japan, Russia, the US and Europe organized an in-orbit party on the International Space Station, celebrating the birthday of one of their members.
However, the era of multinational cooperation in orbit is rapidly coming to an end and will be replaced by a new spirit of international rivalry and "great power" competition.
The summer of 2021 marked a significant deterioration in relations between the US space agency NASA and Russian competitor Roskosmos, which is increasingly taking place through the media. On August 12, the Russian state agency TASS published a report accusing an American astronaut of deliberately sabotaging the International Space Station. NASA quickly denied this.
China, barred by the US Congress in 2011 from cooperating with the International Space Station and NASA, is making steady progress with its own space station in low Earth orbit, with three Chinese astronauts on a multi-week mission ending in mid-September.
Russia and China have signed a memorandum of cooperation on a lunar base, although the date of such a mission is not known. Artemis 1 - NASA's biggest rocket since the Apollo program - will launch into space later this year to test a system the US hopes will return its astronauts to the moon by 2023, another sign of a new Cold War-style space race.
Compared to that historic rivalry, however, the new competition in space is much more complex. It involves many more players, including private companies, and ranges from electronic warfare and anti-satellite weapons in low Earth orbit to the possible early stages of the struggle to colonize the Solar System, especially Mars.
In near-Earth orbit, experts say a number of countries are interested in the potential military use of space, and are establishing organizations such as the US Space Force. In July last year, the US and Britain accused Russia of testing anti-satellite weapons after a Russian satellite came close to an American one.
Washington and its Western allies have long opposed the military use of space, warning that incidents such as the destruction of a malfunctioning Chinese satellite by a rocket fired from Earth in 2007 risk creating a potentially catastrophic amount of space debris. However, US media recently reported that the US is now considering disclosing its anti-satellite capabilities, signaling that Washington may now believe that an arms race cannot be avoided.
Long-term thinking
Both the US and China have sent probes to Mars this year, and China's Zhurong rover has been working continuously there for the past two months. The more sophisticated NASA Perseverance has been active since February, including the deployment of a small experimental helicopter. Both are being pitched as scouts for long-term manned missions, though that could be decades away.
China in particular has much longer-term goals. State media last Sunday highlighted a National Science Foundation report urging Beijing to explore the production of large space platforms, assembled in orbit and a kilometer or more long - ten times the size of the International Space Station.
Such a feat would require overcoming enormous technical challenges, Chinese scientists said, but studying the project's feasibility should be part of Beijing's 2021-25 economic plan.
China's current space station could find itself as the only manned platform in orbit if the International Space Station fails to extend to 2030, as the US hopes. Russia said last Sunday that one of its modules on the station had developed cracks that would worsen over time and warned of a potential avalanche of equipment failures as early as 2025.
The US has signed agreements with European and Asian allies to cooperate on its Artemis program, but China is also reaching out to other nations, particularly developing countries, and may extend cooperation to Russia as part of strengthening its broader partnership with Moscow.
Worsening mistrust
American and Russian space authorities and the media have been waging an increasing war of words in recent months.
Several US media outlets, including The Daily Beast and technology website Ars Technica, published stories questioning the competence of the Russian space program after the rockets on the Russian module fired, apparently spontaneously, shortly after arriving at the station.
The US has depended on Russia to bring astronauts to and from the International Space Station since the end of its space shuttle program in 2011, but resumed its own space flights last year. Relations have further soured since then, as Moscow draws closer to other rising space powers such as India and the United Arab Emirates, and has hosted training for astronauts from both countries.
These alliances are important - which is another reason why the US is making its own deals with allies such as the United Kingdom, Japan and European powers to join Artemis. The international battle for control of space is just beginning, and there is little appetite to be on the losing side.
the author is a Reuters columnist
Translated by: Angelina Šofranac
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