|
|
|
 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Russian space agency, Roskosmos On March 2, 1965, the Soviet government formed a civilian ministry to oversee the nation's rocket and space industry. It became the precursor to the Russian space agency, RKA, created in 1992 and to the Roskosmos State Corporation formed in January 2015
The launch of Sputnik in 1957, marked the emergence of a civilian space program in the USSR with a distinct set of goals.
Origin of Roskosmos When the Soviet rocket development program was initiated in 1946, the Ministry of Armaments specialized in artillery systems took charge of the emerging rocket field. The Soviet aviation industry also joined in, overseeing some types of rocket technology, such as cruise missiles and propulsion systems. Various other Soviet institutions from radio-electronics to naval organizations had to get involved into a new multi-disciplinary field, which at the time had an exclusively military nature. However with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, a new era dawned, marking the emergence of a civilian space program with a distinct set of goals and institutions involved in its production. However orders for the development of spacecraft were still formulated by the State Committee for Defense Technology, GKOT, tasked to produce military systems. In 1963, Sergei Zverev became the head of GKOT and initiated plans for the formation of a civilian space ministry in the USSR. In March 1965, in the wake of Khrushchev's ouster, the new government in the Kremlin implemented reorganization and centralization of the industry, forming specialized ministries to oversee various fields of technology. Among them was the new Ministry of General Machine-building, MOM, tasked to oversee the rocket and space field. A joint decree of the Soviet of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the formation of MOM was signed on March 2, 1965. The new ministry consolidated not only rocket-development companies previously overseen by the former State Committee for Defense Technology, but also several organizations from other committees, first of all electronics and radio-development institutions. A veteran of the Ministry of Armaments Sergei Afanasiev was appointed as the first head of MOM. (663) Post-Soviet period The MOM oversaw the Russian rocket industry until the end of 1991, when the USSR collapsed. On Nov. 14, 1991, the State Council of the Russian Federation liquidated MOM. To replace it, on February 25, 1992, President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree, No. 185, creating the Russian space agency, RKA. A veteran of the industry, Yuri Koptev was appointed to be its Director General. Koptev led the Russian space program through the nearly catastrophic economic crisis of the 1990s, which saw the collapse of the space budget, which resulted in industry-wide cancellation of projects, deterioration of the infrastructure and a massive brain drain. At the same time, Koptev quickly steered a once top-secret industry toward international commerce, self-sustaining projects and, when possible, led an effort to preserve the most important assets and technologies of the former USSR. Koptev also played a key role in forging an agreement with the United States to merge the Russian Mir-2 space station project with NASA's Space Station Freedom, creating the International Space Station, ISS. The agreement allowed both projects to survive budget cuts in their respective countries and, in the case of Russia, probably saved the nation's manned space flight program. Despite a very difficult economic situation in Russia, the agency was doing well enough for 38 additional organizations of the defense sector to join in on June 25, 1994. Then, on January 20, 1998, RKA took responsibility for long-range ballistic missile development and for military space systems. On May 25, 1999, President Yeltsin signed Decree No. 651, essentially merging the space and aviation industries, forming the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or Rosaviakosmos. As a result, Rosaviakosmos took additional responsibility for funding 315 companies of the aviation industry. The military takeover A new drastic change took place in 2004, within a wider restructuring of the Russian industry. On March 9, the Putin's government formed the Federal space agency, Roskosmos. The aviation industry again became a separate entity. At the same time, a veteran of the Russian military space program Anatoly Perminov replaced Koptev as the agency head. From that point on and until 2015, military officers led the agency. While the Russian space budget grew dramatically during the 2000s, Russian satellites were sitting on the ground years behind schedule, while those launched would often crash at liftoff or fail quickly after reaching orbit. The problems escalated during the 2010s, leading to three replacements at the helm of the agency, but no improvement "in the field." State corporation During 2014, there was an attempt to separate Roskosmos from the industry, which in turn, would be centralized within the so-called United Rocket and Space Corporation, ORKK. Under the plan, Roskosmos was reserved the role of strategic planning, while ORKK would encompass the Russian space industry. However, in reality, the split led to the doubling of bureaucracy and constant wrangling between Roskosmos and ORKK over responsibilities and control. In January 2015, the Kremlin was finally fed up with the scandal and initiated a more radical reform. The government restructured Roskosmos into a State Corporation, which unlike the agency, would combine the functions of policy making and strategic planning with business and economic activities. The entire rocket and space industry would be under control of the State Corporation. On the management side, the Kremlin put civilians back in charge of the industry. Igor Komarov, who previously oversaw Russia's leading car manufacturer, was appointed as head of Roskosmos and Yuri Koptev came back to lead its Scientific and Technical Council, NTS, which formulates the industry's engineering strategy. On July 13, 2015, President Putin signed a federal law governing the Roskosmos State Corporation. On August 5 of the same year, Putin approved the "Overseeing Council" (nablyudatelny sovet) of the Roskosmos. It would be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and include following officials:
On Dec. 28, 2015, Putin signed Decree No. 666, dissolving the Federal Space Agency, thus completing the formal transition between the agency and the state corporation. On Aug. 19, 2016, the Russian government issued a decree No. 824, transferring federal ownership of stocks for 46 companies, AO, in the rocket industry to the Roskosmos State Corporation. Other 16 state-owned enterprises, FGUPs, would be converted into the AOs in the next three months and also join Roskosmos. As of 2017, a total staff at Roskosmos' headquarters was not supposed to exceed 191 people, however its management apparently lobbied the Kremlin to approve positions for 450 people. At the time, the government was spending 97 million rubles per year for approved salaries, according to the Russian press. Rogozin replaces Komarov at the helm of Roskosmos
Dmitry Rogozin (left) and Igor Komarov (right) during a visit to Vostochny spaceport in November 2015. On May 24, 2018, Russian media re-confirmed previously reported rumors that the former Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin would replace Igor Komarov as the head of Roskosmos. The official decision from the Kremlin was expected within hours. Along with the new appointment, the Russian press reported on Rogozin's plans to initiate yet another reorganization of Roskosmos to absorb the Tactical Rocket Armaments company, specialized in battlefield missiles, and, possibly, the Almaz-Antei enterprise, developing anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. Later that day, Roskosmos announced that Russian president Vladimir Putin had offered Rogozin a position of the Roskosmos head. The Kremlin also confirmed the appointment effective immediately. Putin reshuffles Roskosmos "Overseeing Council" On Sept. 18, 2018, Roskosmos announced the new 10-member "Overseeing Council of the Roskosmos State Corporation" approved by the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The announcement came in the midst of a major management shakeup at Roskosmos, a significant strategy course correction, multiple corruption scandals and the growing economic and commercial challenges facing the Russian space industry. New members of the Overseeing Council appointed by the Russian President:
Newly appointed representatives of the Russian Government:
Also, Roskosmos Head Dmitry Rogozin is the member of the council. At the same time, the following officials had left the council, Roskosmos said: L.I. Brycheva, E.I. Elin, S.B. Kalugin, S.V. Chemezov. They were appointed in 2015.
On July 15, 2022, after several days of persistent rumors, the Kremlin announced that Dmitry Rogozin had been dismissed as the head of the Roskosmos State Corporation. At the same time, the former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov was appointed the new Director General at Roskosmos. Ironically, Borisov took the position of the Deputy Prime Minister (responsible for the defense industry) in 2018, after Rogozin had left it to become the head of Roskosmos. Following its tumultuous tenure as the head of Roskosmos, Rogozin was expected to move to the presidential administration and, possibly, lead it or "curate" the Russian occupation of the Eastern Ukraine, the independent Meduza publication reported. Cuts at the top of Roskosmos signal slow demise
Sergei Krikalev (left) with his crewmates from the first expedition to the International Space Station during the meeting of the State Commission on the eve of the Soyuz TM-31 launch on Oct. 29, 2000. At the end of 2023, multiple reports had surfaced about upcoming restructuring and layoffs at Roskosmos headquarters in Moscow, including the elimination of top deputies in key positions reporting to the Director General of the State Corporation. A critical meeting on the issue chaired by Roskosmos head Yuri Borisov was scheduled for Dec. 13, 2023. Some high-profile cuts were expected to be in the field of Russia's human space flight program, which saw an increasingly uncertain future in Russia, and in the area of practically grounded Russian space science and planetary exploration efforts. The changes would be along the lines of recent pronouncements by the Head of Roskosmos Yuri Borisov, who wanted the State Corporation to shift its focus to application and military satellite systems, which had better chances of surviving under emerging conditions in Russia. On December 9, well-informed Telegram channel Zakryty Kosmos reported that on the chopping board was the position of Mikhail Khailov, who rose to Deputy Director General for Space Complexes and Systems from a machinist apprentice at NPO Lavochkin, the nation's prime developer of planetary probes and scientific satellites. Moreover, legendary cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who had recently worked at Roskosmos as an Executive Director for Piloted Programs, was also about to see his position axed. As a consolation, Krikalev was reportedly offered a consultant post for the Head of Roskosmos, but it was not immediately known if he would accept it. Ironically, the news came within hours after Krikalev had appeared in the Kremlin footage showing a carefully selected group of officials and military officers applauding Putin's announcement about his decision to "run for reelection" in 2024. According to Zakryty Kosmos, the new streamlined organizational structure at Roskosmos had already been formulated and it would be delivered for approval by the State Corporation's supervising board in December. However, the initial plans to cut nearly 400 out of 600 jobs at Roskosmos, were ultimately reduced to 200 eliminated positions. According to Zakryty Kosmos, the key advocate of restructuring at Roskosmos was Yuri Koptev, the chairman of the Science and Technical Council, who led the agency in the 1990s with just 150 employees, when he had to manage the development of the International Space Station, ISS, and engage in numerous other international ventures. In contrast, the latest, but likely not the last, shakeup at Roskosmos was probably triggered by the devastating effect of international isolation and the overall shrinking of the Russian space activities in the wake of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia's escalating confrontation with the West deprived Roskosmos of millions of dollars in commercial contracts and curtailed Russia's most ambitious space projects, impossible without Western support, such as the first ever opportunity for Russian scientists to operate a lander on the surface of Mars within the European ExoMars project, which was supervised by Khailov on behalf of Roskosmos. The Russian piloted space program strategy (INSIDER CONTENT), curated by Krikalev, also faced a bleak future, as the ISS was approaching its retirement (INSIDER CONTENT), while Roskosmos' own effort to build a space station struggled with potentially insurmountable technical, financial and programmatic challenges. (INSIDER CONTENT) Beyond the ISS, NASA was forming a broad coalition of international partners for the joint exploration of the cis-lunar space within the Artemis and Gateway projects, but Roskosmos had no choice but to exclude itself out back in 2020 (INSIDER CONTENT) in part because of lack of technical capabilities, but mainly due to worsening relations with key space-fairing nations. Simultaneously, China kept Russia out of its space station (INSIDER CONTENT) and lunar program (INSIDER CONTENT) for all effective purposes, despite years of lip service about future space cooperation with Moscow. With the invasion of Ukraine turning into a colossal waste of blood and treasure for the Kremlin, the final Russian cosmonaut launch into space will come much closer to reality at the end of the 2020s (INSIDER CONTENT) than it did in the 1990s, when the Soviet space program narrowly avoided its demise thanks to a broad cooperation between Koptev's team at Roskosmos and NASA, while also saving the US-led space station project.
Leaders of the Russian space industry:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
