Just two days after his boss reprimanded Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin for incompetence, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin laid into the whole Russian space industry. As RIA Novosti reports:

“Firstly, I see ineffective management. Secondly, excess capacity. And thirdly, a blurred understanding of the goals of Russia’s activities in space,” Rogozin told the commission, Russian media reported.

To begin to address some of the problems, Rogozin proposed potentially far-reaching changes to Russia’s space industry. Contractors, manufacturers and operators of space systems, all currently under the control of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), need to be made independent of one another, according to Rogozin, who also said there should be a “discussion” about the merger of the aviation and space industries.

The comments were made to the commission investigating the July 2 failure of a Proton-M launcher.

Tags

About the author

Merryl Azriel

Twitter Email Website

Having wandered into professional writing and editing after a decade in engineering, science, and management, Merryl now enjoys reintegrating the dichotomy by bringing space technology and policy within reach of an interested public. After three years as Space Safety Magazine’s Managing Editor, Merryl semi-retired to Visiting Contributor and manager of the campaign to bring the International Space Station collaboration to the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. She keeps her pencil sharp as Proposal Manager for U.S. government contractor CSRA.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *