Roskosmos

Formerly known as the Roskosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, the state-owned company in its current form came into existence in 2015 as part of a wholesale reorganization of the Russian space industry -- essentially a consolidation and a nationalization combined. Rogozin, a former journalist who has served as ambassador to NATO and as a deputy prime minister and who was openly critical of the country's space program, took the post of director-general three years later. With an estimated budget of around $2.8 billion, as of 2020, the company holds essentially a monopoly on the civilian aerospace industry, overlapping only with the military demands of the Defense Ministry and armed forces. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev took industry observers by surprise on 22 January 2015 with the announcement that the United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), a state corporation that manufactures space equipment, would be merged with Roscosmos, the federal agency that dictates and enacts space policies. While the new agency will also be called Roscosmos, it will be headed not by aerospace veteran and Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko, but by URSC chief Igor Komarov, whose last job was in the commercial sector as the head of Russia’s largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ.

Komarov’s move, and Roscosmos’ liquidation, bear close similarities to the unexpected appointment of a Rostec loyalist to head up major aeronautics company United Aircraft Corporation chief just last week, a move that also sent shock waves across the air and space industry.

Yury Karash, a space policy expert at the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, noted that Roscosmos’s former division enabled each section to hold the other responsible for the quality of its work. “An independent Russian Space Agency was one bulwark, however shaky, against [corruption], and now that it’s gone,” said Dr. James Oberg, a retired rocket scientist in Houston and long-time follower of the Russian space program. “I fear a lot more beaks will be wet from diverting funds from space budgets,” he said.

By Matthew Bodner, writing in the Moscow Times Jan. 22 2015, noted that "Under the leadership of Roscosmos’s new head Komarov, an ally of Chemezov, the chances are greater that Russia will forgo extending its participation in international projects like the International Space Station beyond its 2020 deadline and instead go for building a new national space station based on old plans."

Russia’s space sector had been plagued by complaints of inefficiency, lack of productivity and lack of oversight, following a string of rocket failures and satellite crashes over the last several years causing billions of rubles in losses. The Russian space industry’s proposed consolidation, the government says, will help increase oversight and lower the accident rate.

Dmitry Rogozin, the newly appointed director of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos said 29 June 2018 space exploration is very much like a religion for Russians and revealed the “10 commandments” that would be used under his leadership. “As I have already said, quoting from Sakharov, the meaning of our life is our expansion. Expansion in space and on the Earth and also on commercial markets that are being created through the use of our orbital group,” Rogozin said as he spoke at the Moscow conference dedicated to major tasks and development plans of the Roscosmos corporation.

At the same conference Rogozin stated that the idea of space exploration is like a religion for Russians and just like a religion this idea consists of three major parts: the dogma, miracles and sacraments, or being a part of the inner content. He emphasized the extremely high importance of this fact because Russians had always been, in Rogozin’s words “the nation of number ones” and Russian society had always reacted very painfully to violation of traditions. “The maintaining of this tradition, the restoration of this tradition will become an element of our gigantic moral responsibility,” he said.

Rogozin then presented his self-styled “10 commandments” that, in his words, would become the basis for the work of the Russian space industry for the time when he heads it. The first principle is the special control over fulfilling state orders. “This should be as clear as the Lord’s Prayer,” Rogozin said. Second was the direct control over orders from the Roscosmos side. The third is setting up a special department for technical orders and the fourth is introducing the single technical policy for the space sphere. The fifth principle is to include executive directors in boards of various enterprises that form Roscosmos and the sixth is to make these directors prove their worth by passing special tests every year. The seventh principle is to found the “council for rationalization,” the eighth is to stop taking part in lengthy projects and the ninth is to support the international cooperation in the space sphere. The 10th of Rogozin’s “commandments” was “we are not ready to engage in pseudo-charity programs when they hurt our business interests.”

Dmitry Rogozin was appointed to head the Roscosmos corporation during a government reshuffle that took place in May 2018 after Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president for the new term. Before this appointment Rogozin for over six years worked as deputy prime minister in charge of the Russian defense industry.

The Roscosmos State Corporation in the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation is considered the champion by the scale of financial violations. This was stated on television 25 November 2018 by the head of department Alexei Kudrin. Previously, he cited data in the State Duma that more than 40% of violations for 2017 relate to Roscosmos. “The total amount of violations, deficiencies of income and use of funds was 1 trillion 865 billion. This is almost twice as many as in 2016 and 3.5 times more than in 2015. I’ll say at once that 760 billion of this amount is a violation of accounting in Roskosmos, ”said the chairman of the joint venture. Kudrin also noted that the checks led to criminal cases.

This statement was commented on by Roscosmos. “The verification continues, the necessary conclusions will be made and the organizational actions carried out,” the structure said. They also recalled that Kudrin was citing data for the past year, and this was when the leadership changed at Roskosmos and the financial and economic, contractual and construction blocks were updated 100%. "Roskosmos" closely interacts not only with the joint venture, but also with the Prosecutor General's Office, in order to "identify and eliminate violations."

In October 2019 Dmitry Rogozin, speaking at the reporting conference of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. K.E. Tsiolkovsky, said that Roskosmos is reducing employees who are not related to the production potential of enterprises in the rocket and space industry. In November 2018, the general director of the state corporation instructed to cut non-production personnel by 15%.

The salaries of the Roskosmos management have been reduced by 15-20%, while the staff of the state corporation has been reduced by 100 people. This was announced 15 November 202 by Dmitry Rogozin, General Director of Roscosmos. "Now we have a regime of maximum savings, the salaries of management that were inflated in previous years have been cut by 15-20%, the staff of the state corporation has been reduced by a hundred people," Rogozin wrote.

According to the head of the state corporation, the staff of the United Rocket and Space Corporation is being reduced from 100 to 15 people. URKK is an enterprise that is a center of competence for the diversification of the rocket and space industry. In October, the general director was replaced there, now the corporation is headed by Sergey Gureev. In an interview with TASS, Rogozin also added that cost optimization will also be carried out in terms of transport. "From January 1, most of the leadership of the Civil Code will change from an official car to a taxi," he said.

For the better part of the 2010s, Roskosmos also held a monopoly on transport to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The U.S. decision to ground its aging space shuttle fleet in 2011 meant U.S. and European astronauts relied solely on Soyuz capsules to commute to the orbiting station. Cargo supplies went on Russian-built Progress craft. It was enormously lucrative for Roskosmos, with NASA paying up to $100 million per ride.

The advent of private, mainly U.S.-based space companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin also deprives Roskosmos of a steady revenue stream from U.S. taxpayers. Following the March 2020 delivery of U.S. astronauts to the ISS by a SpaceX craft, NASA has moved to end the purchase of seats on Soyuz flights for U.S. astronauts.

Roskosmos said it made around 12 billion rubles ($160 million) in profit in 2020, according to Maksim Ovchinnikov, its top economics and finance officer. He also said the company had reduced its workforce by some 10,000 employees since 2019. Aleksei Kudrin, the head of Russia's Audit Chamber and a former longtime finance minister, told Putin that auditors had turned up 30 billion rubles ($400 million) in financial irregularities at Roskosmos in 2020.

After Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014, pressure mounted in Congress to more quickly wean U.S. satellite launches from the engines, known as RD-180s. The United States is to officially cease using the RD-180 in 2022 -- slicing revenues for the manufacturer, NPO Energomash, which is now part of the Roskosmos conglomerate.

In June 2021, the two sides extended, until 2030, a cooperation agreement that largely centers on the continued operation of the ISS. But Rogozin, who himself is under U.S. and EU financial sanctions related to the seizure of Crimea, has threatened to pull Roskosmos out of joint work on the station early. "Either we work together, and then the sanctions must be lifted immediately, or we will not work together and then we will deploy our own station," he was quoted as saying in June.