Espionage: this Russian cosmonaut is excluded from SpaceX crew-12 for violation of security rules

Joint flights to the International Space Station (ISS) are one of the rare sectors where cooperation between Russians and Americans remains despite the war in Ukraine. But this type of fragile balance can be undermined quite suddenly.

This is what has just happened with SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission, scheduled for February 2026. The crew will be deprived of Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, an experienced pilot with hundreds of days in orbit under his belt. Oleg Artemyev had already attracted attention when he posed with the flag of a Ukrainian province on the ISS.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, tried to drown out the fish by talking about a simple “transfer to another job” But the information leaking, notably via the investigative site The Insider and sources close to NASA, paints a much darker picture.

The smartphone and ITAR…

The affair would have exploded at the end of November 2025 while Artemyev was in full training at the SpaceX facilities in Hawthorne, California.

The cosmonaut’s fault would be to have used his personal phone to photograph SpaceX equipment.sensitive“. We are talking in particular about rocket engines – potentially the Starship Raptor or elements of the Falcon 9 – and internal technical documents. He is accused of having then made “to go out” this data from the company premises by exporting it with your phone.

This is where the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) come in. For the United States, many space technologies have military applications. The ITAR is a security wall that strictly controls the export and dissemination of this information. Photographing a rocket engine is potentially photographing a technological military secret.

For a cosmonaut of this level, we are far from the error of thoughtlessness. Here is what specialist Gregory Trishkin told The Insider: “It’s hard to imagine a veteran committing such a mistake by accident.”. In other words: the act was deliberate.

According to Ufotinikon X, Artemiev has since been expelled from the United States.

Sophie Adenot, French ESA astronaut, will leave in February with Artemiev’s replacement

If NASA does not give any official details to avoid the diplomatic incident, the message is clear. The American agency cannot compromise with the ITAR regulation, even for a space partner as vital as Roscosmos. The fact of having removed Artemyev, without waiting for the end of the internal investigation, shows the seriousness of the situation.

The incident is a reminder that peace in orbit hangs by a thread, especially when cutting-edge technologies from private companies like SpaceX are involved. Russia, historically at the forefront of certain fields, is obviously seeking to fill the technological gap created by the rapid advances of the American private sector.

The good news for the Crew-12 mission, which is to include French ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, is that the replacement, Andrey Fedyaev, has already flown on the Crew Dragon. His training to take over Artemyev’s job will therefore be short, and the launch schedule should not be affected.

Still, this story of photos and national security leaves a bitter taste and reaffirms that space has once again become a place where political tensions are expressed without much restraint.

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