Russian space: glorious past, difficult present, uncertain future
The quick effect of a sharp increase in financial investments in the industry cannot be expected
A major restructuring currently underway in the Russian rocket and space industry is aimed at solving a lot of the problems and contradictions that have accumulated in it. A series of major accidents that have occurred regularly in the industry in recent years and have considerably spoiled its image in the eyes of the country's top leadership, as well as foreign partners and customers, has led to serious changes in the national space program.
The succession of resignations of the heads of the Federal Space Agency of Russia (Roskosmos) did not at all affect the negative trend. It is doubtful that a new attempt to change the situation, initiated by the government and with the blessing of the president, will give quick results. Moreover, a significant part of the problems facing Roskosmos is of a worldwide nature. They are also characteristic of other space powers today.
Low quality and old engineers
The problems of the domestic rocket and space industry were identified most graphically by the regularly occurring accidents of Proton launch vehicles. Their failures were a direct consequence of the main problem for today's Russian high-tech industry - low production culture and poor quality control. Enterprises use equipment that has not met modern technologies and requirements for a long time. This problem is well known and the leadership of Russia. So, even 12 on April 2013 of the year in Blagoveshchensk, President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on the prospects for the development of cosmonautics in Russia, said: "A significant part of the equipment of the rocket and space industry is outdated, more than 80 percent of the electronic component base used is produced abroad."
It is in the inadequate quality control that the cause of the Proton accidents lies. According to the results of one of the last, 2013, which took place in July (the launch was broadcast live on Russian television), the chairman of the emergency commission, the former deputy head of Roscosmos, Alexander Lopatin, stated that “in the Khrunichev Center (manufacturer of the rocket. - Auth.) Incorrect installation of sensors in the yaw plane. These devices were monitored without comment and were allowed to board the launch vehicle, but the installation of some of them directly on the rocket did not happen correctly, they were turned upside down by 180 degrees. ”
The conclusion of the commission was predictable: Proton-M has been in operation since April 2001. If the design of the carrier had a flaw, it would have appeared long ago. For 13 years of production of this modification of the rocket, its manufacturing technology should have already been worked out. However, Proton-M demonstrates low reliability: of the 79 rocket launches, only 70 were successful. In four cases, the carrier itself failed (September 5 2007, December 5 2010 of the year, July 2 of the year 2013, 15 of the year May 2014 of the year). Five times the launch tasks were not completed due to crashes of the Breeze-M upper stage, which brought the payload to an unplanned orbit (28 February 2006 of the year, 14 March 2008 of the year, 17 August 2011 of the year, 6 of August 2012 of the year and 8 of December 2012 of the year ). Thus, the reliability of the media is only 88,6 percent. Most of these nine accidents occurred not because of deficiencies in the design, but because of errors in the manufacture of elements of the carrier and their assembly, not "caught" by subsequent tests and inspections.
It is worth noting that one of the Proton crashes that occurred on 5 in December 2010 of the year cost the position of the previous head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov. The findings of the commission of the accident about the insufficient technical control of the carrier before the start were blamed on the head of the agency and led to the resignation. During his tenure of his successor, Vladimir Popovkin, from April 2011 to October 2013 (that is, in just two and a half years!), A whole series of launch vehicle accidents occurred: four Protons and two Soyuz did not fulfill their tasks. Although Popovkin repeatedly demanded that enterprises improve the quality of production and improve the control of finished products, he could not change the situation, which was the main reason for his resignation.
More radical measures in this area were proposed by 18 on July 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. In his extravagant manner, he reacted to the conclusions of the emergency commission by following the post in his mini-blog on Twitter: “Those suspected of gross violation of the assembly technology of the Proton-M rocket will be tested on a polygraph. The Russian government is waiting for the report of Roskosmos. ”
The roots of the problems with poor quality and poor control lie in another — a personnel problem: there is an acute shortage of qualified engineers and workers at Russian space enterprises. This problem is particularly acute in cooperation. Personnel training that existed in the USSR has greatly deteriorated. Technical universities are not popular with high school graduates. Small wages, especially in 1990 – 2000's, resulted in high staff turnover. The result was a serious age disproportion: the average age of 67 thousands of workers today in the space sector is 43 of the year. However, there are two peaks: about 40 percent of employees have 60 age and more, and about 35 percent more - those who are 30 – 35 or less.
The industry has almost no middle-aged specialists (35 – 45 years) who possess high working ability, qualifications and experience. In addition, compared with the Soviet era, the number of specialists with higher education has almost halved, and the number of specialists with scientific degrees has tripled. “The space industry needs to more actively attract new scientific and engineering personnel, above all, of course, talented young people,” said President Vladimir Putin in 2013, “and to do this, create the necessary conditions for professional growth, ensure decent wages, social conditions, develop system of scientific grants.
Budget takeoff and corporate fonda
Decent wages and the grant system are part of the next problem of Russian space - financial. True, the size of the space budget of Russia today is no longer such a critical issue. In ten years, it has grown almost 18 times: from 10 billion rubles in 2003 to 178,1 billion rubles this year (5,26 billion dollars). Even with inflation, this is a huge leap. Growth will continue further - in 2015, the state plans to spend a billion rubles on 202 space programs. According to Vladimir Putin, from 2013 to 2020, about 1600 billions of rubles should be allocated to space activities within the framework of the relevant state programs.
For comparison: so far the most dramatic growth of the space budget was observed in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the first half of the 60-ies when the Apollo program began to land on the moon. For six years, the agency’s budget has grown 68 (!) Times - from 488 million dollars in 1958 to 33,24 billion dollars in 1964 a year.
If ten years ago, Russia was inferior in terms of expenditures on the space program even to such countries as Canada, India and Israel, then today it has reached the third place in the world in this parameter. NASA leads with more than three-fold separation: its budget in 2014 was 17,65 billion dollars. However, Russia is almost equal in terms of expenditures on space with the united Europe: the budget of the European Space Agency (European Space Agency - ESA) in 2014 was estimated at 4,10 billion euros (5,62 billion dollars). However, this comparison is true without taking into account the funds spent by the countries of the Old World on the national space programs in addition to the European one. In addition, there is no reliable information about the space budget of China, which may well take third or even second place in the world.
It should be noted that such a significant increase in the space budget of Russia did not occur under any particular priority program, as in the case of NASA with the landing of astronauts on the Moon in 60-s. Rather, it was a return to the level of financing the industry in Soviet times. The objectives of such a budget growth are the maintenance of the status of Russia as one of the leading space powers by 2020, and the strengthening of this status by 2030.
Indeed, it does not make sense to count on the quick effect of a sharp increase in financial investments in the space industry. The implementation of space programs in the world is at least five years. Given the degradation over the past 20 years of Russian design bureaus, who have lost most of their specialists, these deadlines will increase even more. Therefore, it makes no sense to expect, along with the spasmodic growth of the budget, the same rapid growth of the orbital constellation, expansion of space research, improvement of their quality and reliability.
Actually, the country's leadership did not expect a fast "cosmic miracle" from Roscosmos. The agency was tasked to spend the budget wisely and restructure the industry to improve its performance.
The distribution of budgetary funds for specific space programs is still a disproportion. “Until recently, manned programs ranged from 40 to 58 percent of the space budget to the detriment of other areas,” stated Vladimir Putin. - As a result, we have fallen behind the world level in a number of areas, for example, by means of remote sensing of the Earth, personal satellite communications systems, registration and rescue of objects in distress, and so on. A noticeable separation from the leading space countries was formed in our country and in the technologies that provide programs for the development of the so-called deep space. Of course, we must preserve everything that has been accumulated in the manned part, but other directions must also be tightened. ”
In addition to “more than 40 percent” (and this is no less than 70 billion rubles) on large-scale spending of Roscosmos budget in 2014, manned cosmonautics are the costs of maintaining the group and developing the global navigation system GLONASS (12,6% or 21,56 billion rubles). Another 12,2 percent (20,8 billion rubles) is directed to the development of Plesetsk and Baikonur, the construction of a new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region. In addition, according to Roskosmos management, about 38 more percent of the budget is allocated for the creation of new and production of existing launch vehicles (apparently, the head of the agency took the construction of launch complexes for new missiles to this article). And only 9 percent remains on all spacecraft, except manned (as of 2013 year). Therefore, the space agency was forced to reconsider priorities.
The change of priorities has led to the formation of the “space front” - managers of enterprises that are the main recipients of budget funds, which they must now lose. An example of such an open opposition was the confrontation in 2011 – 2012 that was led by Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin and the general director of Russian Space Systems (RKS), the chief designer of the GLONASS space navigation system, Yuri Urlichich. In the war with Roscosmos, the RKS used even the methods of "black PR", spreading disinformation about Popovkin, discrediting his honor and dignity.
In March, 2012 appeared on the Internet an open letter to the Deputy Director General of the RCN, Ivan Golub, in which he called on the head of Roscosmos to resign. In response, Roscosmos launched an anti-corruption campaign against RKS, as a result of which Urlichić was removed from his post as GLONASS chief designer, and in December 2012 of the year - RKS general director. The Department of Internal Affairs on the Moscow Metro opened a criminal case against the leadership of the RCC suspected of embezzling 6,5 a billion rubles allocated for the development of the GLONASS system. In May, 2014 th, former deputy Urlichich in the RKS, Andrei Chimiris and Aleksey Kuzenkov, were charged with fraud.
However, the most intransigent “space frontier” during the entire existence of the space agency in Russia (it was formed in February 1992) has always remained the head company in the field of manned flights - the Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) Energia. S. p. Queen. With her, the “wars” were going on during the time of the first head of the agency, Yuri Koptev (1992 – 2004), who was opposed by the president of Energia, Yuri Semenov (the head of the RSC was in 1989 – 2005). This continued under Anatolia Perminov (2004 – 2011), whose main opponent was the head of Energia, Nikolay Sevastyanov (2005 – 2007). Nothing has changed under Popovkin, and now, with the current head of the agency, Oleg Ostapenko, who was already opposed by Vitaly Lopot (headed "Energy" from 2007 onwards). The methods of counteraction are the same here: in April, the 2014-th Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District opened a criminal case against Lopota, suspecting him of abuse of power.
Spacecraft and "aimless" ships
The recipient of the very “40 – 58 percent of the budget” of RSC Energia, naturally, did not want to lose state funding. The corporation regularly sought to include all new manned projects in the federal space program of Russia. From 2000, RSC insisted on the creation of the Clipper reusable spacecraft. The space agency involved in this project insisted on revising the requirements for the ship, which was transformed in 2009 into a more versatile manned transport vehicle of a new generation (PTK NP). In 2006, RSC Energia developed a concept for the development of Russian manned cosmonautics over the 2006 – 2030 years. It envisaged the gradual creation of an industrial transport space system, the exploration of near-Earth space, the Moon, and flights to Mars. It was proposed that the Russian segment of the ISS should not be reduced to orbit along with the entire station in 2020, but be undocked and turned into a new national, permanently operating orbital station.
“Most of the accidents occurred due to errors in the manufacture of elements of the carrier and their assembly, not“ caught ”by subsequent checks”
In April 2013, Vitaly Lopota unveiled a slightly different scenario for the development of manned astronautics. After the flooding of the International Space Station (ISS), it envisaged the creation of an internationally visited platform at the Lagrange point (the position allowing the spacecraft to be constantly in the same position relative to the Earth and the Moon), and in the long run - international manned expeditions to asteroids, to the Moon, into orbit and the surface of mars. In the opinion of the RKK President, such a program could become the driving force for the technological advancement of the entire engineering industry in Russia, as in the 80s, the Energy program Buran. Lopota also called on the Russian government to start developing a new super-heavy class launch vehicle capable of putting tons of payload into 70 orbit. The corporation has already developed a proposal for such a rocket.
If we leave aside questions of the influence of space programs on Russian engineering as a whole, as well as space competition (which essentially ceased in 1969 after the Americans landed on the Moon), suffice it to say that during the space age 56 years only telecommunication satellite systems became business profitable to their operators. Gradually, systems of photographing the Earth from space and navigation come to payback. Manned cosmonautics is akin to basic science, which does not bring short-term profit. The only exception in this area for Russia was the “space transport”: the delivery of foreign astronauts to the ISS. However, this type of business could not provide even the work of RSC Energia, becoming only a small bonus to state budget financing.
In total, for the 55 flights of foreign astronauts on Mir and the ISS under contracts with NASA in the period from 1994 to 2017, Russia received 3,21 a billion dollars a year. In addition, eight professional astronauts and eight space tourists flew from 2000 to 2009-th to the ISS, for the flight of each of which Russia received 20 – 22 million dollars, that is, a total of about 330 million dollars. The total profit from manned flights during 22 years was 3,54 billion dollars - one and a half times less than the current annual space budget.
The use of manned flights in the national interest has long lost specific and clear goals in Russia. In the USSR, since the end of the 60-s, a program for the development of orbital stations was being implemented, which resulted in the Salyut and Mir stations. The next stage is the Mir-2 project, integrated into 1992 – 1993 in the ISS. However, without a diverse scientific program in which institutes and other research organizations would be interested, the meaning of maintaining and developing the Russian segment of the ISS is lost. Currently, according to the Russian program on the ISS, mainly biomedical experiments are carried out, the main purpose of which is to test a long flight to Mars. A new direction was the material science experiment “Plasma Crystal” to produce unique alloys that cannot be created on Earth due to gravity. However, most of the possible studies that could be performed at the orbital station have already been carried out. Now the Russian crew is mainly engaged in maintaining the station’s proper operation, thus ensuring the implementation of a scientific program in the American segment.
However, Energia insists on the continuation of programs of orbital stations, for the delivery of crews to which and the supply of cargo, and is developed primarily PTC NP. Plans for manned flights to the moon, and especially Mars, have never been officially approved either by Roskosmos, or even by the Russian government. Thus, the new ship is created under the old, already achieved goals. If, shortly after the launch of the PTK NP flight (the first launch is scheduled for 2017 – 2018 years), the ISS in full will be de-orbited (this operation is scheduled for 2020), then this target for the new ship disappears. Thus, there is no need for this project at all.
The existing tasks, including the fulfillment of international obligations under the ISS project, may well be performed by the Soyuz family ships. The modernization currently being carried out will make it possible to reduce the weight of service systems, thereby increasing the size of the delivered payload, increase the power supply system capacity, ship comfort for the crew, and increase its reliability as a whole. With external similarity with the project of the very first “Union” of the middle of 60, the modern ship has nothing to do with it in terms of systems and capabilities. The dimensions and masses of the modernized Soyuz fully meet the requirements for manned vehicles for near-earth flights and the supply of orbital stations.
Applied targets and "new old" rockets
The creation of the NTC NP without the goals clearly defined by the Federal Space Program for it leads to the fact that Roskosmos regularly delays the work on the project, seeking to redistribute funds to more pragmatic directions. The main one is rightly called cosmic communication. Among the priorities - coverage of the Arctic zone. It is also planned to increase the capacity of communications and television systems in geostationary orbit. According to agency estimates, it is necessary to increase the number of transmitters on communication satellites by an order of magnitude, up to 2000 trunks, which requires a grouping of 44 spacecraft.
An important priority for Roskosmos remains the shooting of the Earth from space. Until recently, only one Resource DK spacecraft was used for this purpose. He provided the need for Russian buyers of images of the Earth only for 10 percent, the remaining 90 percent were purchased abroad. In 2013, two new satellites of this type were launched. Roscosmos plans to bring the number of such devices to 2015 by 16. At the same time, the share of domestic images in the domestic market will increase to 60 percent, and to 2020 year - to 90 percent.
Quite pragmatically, the agency approached one of its main tasks - ensuring Russia's guaranteed access to space. Roskosmos is financing the maintenance of ground-based space infrastructure facilities at the Plesetsk and Baikonur cosmodromes, from where launches of Rokot light-launch vehicles, Soyuz-2 medium rocket and Proton-M heavy launch vehicles are conducted today. Again, despite the external similarity with the missiles of the past decades, these are fairly new, cost-effective and efficient carriers. Their engines, control systems, equipment have been repeatedly replaced since the first flights.
Today in the world there is an acute problem of cheap access to space. Of course, it is cheaper to use the existing missiles and their launch complexes, without taking the risks and costs of creating new ones. All types of Russian carriers used for launches of domestic devices are in high demand abroad. For example, the commercial launches of the Proton brought Russia about 5,7 billion dollars (from 1996 of the year they were executed 83). Europe in general went to an unprecedented step, having built a launch facility for the newest version of the Soyuz-2 rocket - Soyuz-ST at its launch site in French Guiana. From there, five commercial launches have already been completed.
In addition to upgrading old rockets, Roskosmos also finances the creation of a new family of carriers, the Angara. In fact, this project went to the agency from the Ministry of Defense of Russia, which, even in 1992, announced a competition for the creation of a heavy-class launch vehicle for its needs. In 1994, the winner was the Space Center. M. V. Khrunichev. In 1997, during the liquidation of the military space forces, the Ministry of Defense refused to fully finance all stages of the Angara project, remaining only a customer of rocket launches and co-financing the construction of the launch complex. However, the project was already at a fairly advanced stage. Therefore, the civilian space agency has taken on the burden of further funding the development work. Its volume in the framework of the Federal Space Program in the 2000-s was a significant part of the Roscosmos budget: in 2006 – 2014-m - 3,288 billion rubles (about 100 million dollars at the current rate). Of this amount, 2,68 billion rubles (81,5%) was allocated from the federal budget and 0,608 billion rubles (18,5%) from funds invested in space activities by the implementing organizations.
Angara carriers were developed in the middle of the 90-ies, in a period of acute lack of funding. Therefore, already existing technologies were used to the maximum extent in their design. The engine for the first stage of the RD-191 was made on the basis of the RD-170 engine of the Energia rocket, for the second stage the RD-0124 was taken from the Soyuz-2 project. To create a large range of rockets of different payloads for various purposes with limited funding, it was decided to make two types of universal rocket modules, from which carriers of different types could be assembled - from light to heavy. This approach led to not the most optimal parameters of the missiles and the deterioration of their flight characteristics in comparison with other carriers.
After a twenty-year period of the creation of 9 July 2014, the first flight tests of the light version of the "Angara" took place. The launch of the heavy version is planned until the end of 2014. The calls from competitors of the Khrunichev Center (the same “Energy”, “TsSKB-Progress”, etc.) calls to abandon the project and create the best version of the Roscosmos missile does not take into account: taking on an alternative project would mean losing another decade and billions of rubles. The relatively high cost of Angara missiles in the first launches will inevitably decrease.
Another quite expensive project of Roskosmos is the creation of the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region. It is considered as an alternative to Baikonur and partially to Plesetsk. The choice of location was largely dictated by the national task of developing the Far East, stimulating enterprises in this region. Obviously, taking into account this “supra-space” task, the government of the Russian Federation consciously went on increasing the cost of building the East and increasing the cost of its operation in the future. It is planned to allocate about 2016 billion rubles for the construction of objects of the Vostochny cosmodrome before 164. The first space launch using the Soyuz-2 rocket is to take place from East in 2015. And by 2018, the launch site for the Angara carriers is planned to be built at the cosmodrome.
Agency, holdings, corporation
Given this set of problems and challenges, the Russian rocket and space industry has long been faced with the need to restructure the industry to consolidate its resources and improve manageability. The possibility of the existence of a “space front” was also a consequence of the management weakness of the space agency. Roscosmos did not have the authority to conduct its pragmatic, although sometimes unpopular decisions.
These issues have been raised regularly since the beginning of the space agency. But neither Yuri Koptev, nor Anatoly Perminov, nor Vladimir Popovkin had enough weight to change the situation: the Russian space industry remained a set of several hundred self-sufficient firms. In the absence of sufficient state funding in 1990 – 2000-ies, these firms often competed with each other, invading other people's areas of work, without disdaining dumping. In addition, the poor implementation in these years of a whole series of space projects, which failed in whole or in part, demonstrated that almost all Russian space enterprises do not have sufficient engineering potential to carry out such developments at the required level of complexity and reliability. The integration of enterprises would allow to solve this personnel problem by redistributing work between the design bureaus on separate parts of one project.
Plans for the reorganization of the Russian space industry have been discussed for two decades. In 90-ies, Yuri Koptev sought to recreate the former Ministry of General Engineering based on the space agency, which was in charge of all the USSR rocket and space enterprises. At the end of 2006, Anatoly Perminov announced plans to integrate the industry under his jurisdiction into three or four large holdings, but only by 2015. Until that time, it was planned to create 12 – 15 integrated structures from design bureaus, serial factories and some cooperation enterprises working on some projects.
Vladimir Popovkin proposed in 2011 to form two large rocket and space holdings based on the Khrunichev Center and the Energia Corporation. However, other enterprises, with the support of a number of government officials, essentially blocked this project. This situation is generally similar to the problems that arose when creating other integrated structures in the Russian defense industry - the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern, Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation, the United Aircraft Building Corporation, the United Engine Building Corporation, the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
In 2012, Roscosmos launched an initiative to create a state corporation based on the agency, similar to Rosatom and Rostec. The Roscosmos State Corporation was to be empowered to develop state policy in the field of space activities, conclude government contracts, distribute budget financing among enterprises, and license their activities. All state-owned shares of space enterprises were to be transferred to the state corporation. The contradiction of this proposal was that if Roscosmos was reorganized into a state corporation in the government of the Russian Federation, the body responsible for implementing space activities on behalf of the state would disappear. The situation with Russia's participation in international space programs has also become uncertain: the state agency represented by the space agency also concludes agreements on them.
In order to solve the tasks of restructuring and consolidating the rocket and space industry, developing an optimal system of its management, in August 2012, on behalf of the Chairman of the Russian Government, an interdepartmental working group was established under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. She eventually rejected the project to create a state corporation. Following the results of this work, Rogozin noted: “At the present stage, it is necessary to preserve and strengthen the role of the federal executive body - Roskosmos. And the simultaneous phased consolidation and organization of the rocket and space industry into large holdings in the form of open joint-stock companies, whose shares are wholly owned by the Russian Federation. ” Thus, everything remained in the position in which it was before.
Only 9 in October 2013, Vladimir Putin approved a plan for reforming the space industry. At a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said: “In order for the industry to be managed, it is necessary to save it from parallelism. Today, unfortunately, we have different enterprises of the rocket and space industry concentrated in ten (integrated) structures and there are a lot of organizations that operate outside of them as independent ones. Each works according to its own plan, each uses its own element base, that is, universal technical, technological solutions are practically not visible. ”
Rogozin proposed to divide the functions of Roscosmos, which combined in its person both the state customer and the performer, and create two structures. The first, Roskosmos proper, will retain the functions of the federal authority responsible for implementing the space policy and forming the state order for the development and production of rocket and space technology. The second structure was the United Rocket and Space Corporation (ORKK), which will be responsible for the execution of the state order.
Already 10 in October 2013, Vladimir Popovkin, who insisted on a different version of the Roscosmos reform, was dismissed from his post. Colonel-General Oleg Ostapenko, deputy defense minister for science, was appointed head of Roscosmos, who from June 2008 to November 2012 was the commander of the Space Forces (in November 2011, they were transformed into the Aerospace Defense Forces). Ostapenko became the third former commander of the Space Forces, then appointed head of the civil space agency, for ten years. Such a commitment in appointing "space" generals to the post of head of Roscosmos is not exclusively a Russian tradition. The current NASA administrator is a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, former military astronaut Charles Bolden.
Igor Komarov was appointed head of the ORCC, in 2009 – 2013 he was AvtoVAZ’s director. 3 February 2014-th Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the formation of an SQAR on the basis of the Research Institute for Space Instrumentation. 6 March 2014, the ORCC was registered.
ORKK - open joint stock company with 100-percent state participation. In the future, federal-owned shares of large enterprises and organizations of the rocket and space industry, as well as nine federal state unitary enterprises (after their incorporation with subsequent transfer of shares) will be made into the authorized capital of the corporation. Two years are given for holding all the events related to the creation of the corporation. Officially, the corporation declares as its goal “the comprehensive reform of the rocket and space industry, that is, the methods and methods of production”.
Prospects are foggy
Russia's space activities have long demanded a serious correction. The future of the whole industry depends on whether it is carried out according to the announced plan and in full.
A serious increase in the budget should contribute to the solution of personnel problems: the cosmonautics that has again become financially sufficient will apparently attract both young and already experienced personnel. Subject to the technical re-equipment of enterprises and the improvement of technological discipline, it is realistic to raise the level of quality and reliability of equipment to an acceptable level.
To speed up this process, Roskosmos seeks to participate in major international programs. Thus, the requirements for quality and reliability are immediately set at the level of world standards. These are the ISS projects already mentioned, the launches of the Soyuz-2 rocket from the Guiana Space Center, the supply of engines for US carriers (in addition to the NK-33 for Antares, the RD-180 engines for the Atlas V rocket family are also supplied). In 2013, the Roscosmos and the European Space Agency signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of exploration of Mars and other solar system bodies by means of robots. The program includes a joint study of Mars (the ExoMars program, which involves the launch of two automatic stations in January 2016 of the year and April of 2018) and Mercury (Russian equipment at the European-Japanese station BepiColombo, which is scheduled to launch in August of 2015), and also Moon (program delivery soil) and satellites of Jupiter (landing Russian probe on Ganymede). Thanks to the agreement, Russia will be able to return to the studies of other bodies of the Solar System after the Phobos-Grunt project, which ended immediately after the launch of the 2011 year in November.
There is also a need to develop a new Federal space program of Russia. It must meet the increased level of funding and become more pragmatic than the existing one. Thus, the disproportion between the manned space program and applied projects in which Russian consumers are really interested (communications, navigation, shooting of the Earth) should be corrected. In the end, having a space budget even more than Russia, Europe does not have at all its independent manned program, contenting itself with participation mainly in American projects. At the same time, the ESA does not feel injured and flawed.
However, the main guarantee for the success of space policy of Russia in the near future should be a change in the management of the industry itself, a departure from the Soviet principles that successfully worked in a planned, tightly regulated economy, but not effective in a free market.
Who will make these changes now is not yet completely clear, since the process of restructuring the industry is just beginning. Obviously, the head of Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, must organize the process of developing a new state policy in the field of cosmonautics. The share of Igor Komarov is a change in the situation with the quality of the production of existing equipment and the organization of work in promising areas. Only decisive steps by Ostapenko and Komarov, aimed at changing the situation in the industry, and their positive results will be perceived by the state leadership as confirmation of the correctness of the chosen course of reforming the rocket and space industry of Russia.
A major restructuring currently underway in the Russian rocket and space industry is aimed at solving a lot of the problems and contradictions that have accumulated in it. A series of major accidents that have occurred regularly in the industry in recent years and have considerably spoiled its image in the eyes of the country's top leadership, as well as foreign partners and customers, has led to serious changes in the national space program.
The succession of resignations of the heads of the Federal Space Agency of Russia (Roskosmos) did not at all affect the negative trend. It is doubtful that a new attempt to change the situation, initiated by the government and with the blessing of the president, will give quick results. Moreover, a significant part of the problems facing Roskosmos is of a worldwide nature. They are also characteristic of other space powers today.
Low quality and old engineers
The problems of the domestic rocket and space industry were identified most graphically by the regularly occurring accidents of Proton launch vehicles. Their failures were a direct consequence of the main problem for today's Russian high-tech industry - low production culture and poor quality control. Enterprises use equipment that has not met modern technologies and requirements for a long time. This problem is well known and the leadership of Russia. So, even 12 on April 2013 of the year in Blagoveshchensk, President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on the prospects for the development of cosmonautics in Russia, said: "A significant part of the equipment of the rocket and space industry is outdated, more than 80 percent of the electronic component base used is produced abroad."
It is in the inadequate quality control that the cause of the Proton accidents lies. According to the results of one of the last, 2013, which took place in July (the launch was broadcast live on Russian television), the chairman of the emergency commission, the former deputy head of Roscosmos, Alexander Lopatin, stated that “in the Khrunichev Center (manufacturer of the rocket. - Auth.) Incorrect installation of sensors in the yaw plane. These devices were monitored without comment and were allowed to board the launch vehicle, but the installation of some of them directly on the rocket did not happen correctly, they were turned upside down by 180 degrees. ”
The conclusion of the commission was predictable: Proton-M has been in operation since April 2001. If the design of the carrier had a flaw, it would have appeared long ago. For 13 years of production of this modification of the rocket, its manufacturing technology should have already been worked out. However, Proton-M demonstrates low reliability: of the 79 rocket launches, only 70 were successful. In four cases, the carrier itself failed (September 5 2007, December 5 2010 of the year, July 2 of the year 2013, 15 of the year May 2014 of the year). Five times the launch tasks were not completed due to crashes of the Breeze-M upper stage, which brought the payload to an unplanned orbit (28 February 2006 of the year, 14 March 2008 of the year, 17 August 2011 of the year, 6 of August 2012 of the year and 8 of December 2012 of the year ). Thus, the reliability of the media is only 88,6 percent. Most of these nine accidents occurred not because of deficiencies in the design, but because of errors in the manufacture of elements of the carrier and their assembly, not "caught" by subsequent tests and inspections.
It is worth noting that one of the Proton crashes that occurred on 5 in December 2010 of the year cost the position of the previous head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov. The findings of the commission of the accident about the insufficient technical control of the carrier before the start were blamed on the head of the agency and led to the resignation. During his tenure of his successor, Vladimir Popovkin, from April 2011 to October 2013 (that is, in just two and a half years!), A whole series of launch vehicle accidents occurred: four Protons and two Soyuz did not fulfill their tasks. Although Popovkin repeatedly demanded that enterprises improve the quality of production and improve the control of finished products, he could not change the situation, which was the main reason for his resignation.
More radical measures in this area were proposed by 18 on July 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. In his extravagant manner, he reacted to the conclusions of the emergency commission by following the post in his mini-blog on Twitter: “Those suspected of gross violation of the assembly technology of the Proton-M rocket will be tested on a polygraph. The Russian government is waiting for the report of Roskosmos. ”
The roots of the problems with poor quality and poor control lie in another — a personnel problem: there is an acute shortage of qualified engineers and workers at Russian space enterprises. This problem is particularly acute in cooperation. Personnel training that existed in the USSR has greatly deteriorated. Technical universities are not popular with high school graduates. Small wages, especially in 1990 – 2000's, resulted in high staff turnover. The result was a serious age disproportion: the average age of 67 thousands of workers today in the space sector is 43 of the year. However, there are two peaks: about 40 percent of employees have 60 age and more, and about 35 percent more - those who are 30 – 35 or less.
The industry has almost no middle-aged specialists (35 – 45 years) who possess high working ability, qualifications and experience. In addition, compared with the Soviet era, the number of specialists with higher education has almost halved, and the number of specialists with scientific degrees has tripled. “The space industry needs to more actively attract new scientific and engineering personnel, above all, of course, talented young people,” said President Vladimir Putin in 2013, “and to do this, create the necessary conditions for professional growth, ensure decent wages, social conditions, develop system of scientific grants.
Budget takeoff and corporate fonda
Decent wages and the grant system are part of the next problem of Russian space - financial. True, the size of the space budget of Russia today is no longer such a critical issue. In ten years, it has grown almost 18 times: from 10 billion rubles in 2003 to 178,1 billion rubles this year (5,26 billion dollars). Even with inflation, this is a huge leap. Growth will continue further - in 2015, the state plans to spend a billion rubles on 202 space programs. According to Vladimir Putin, from 2013 to 2020, about 1600 billions of rubles should be allocated to space activities within the framework of the relevant state programs.
For comparison: so far the most dramatic growth of the space budget was observed in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the first half of the 60-ies when the Apollo program began to land on the moon. For six years, the agency’s budget has grown 68 (!) Times - from 488 million dollars in 1958 to 33,24 billion dollars in 1964 a year.
If ten years ago, Russia was inferior in terms of expenditures on the space program even to such countries as Canada, India and Israel, then today it has reached the third place in the world in this parameter. NASA leads with more than three-fold separation: its budget in 2014 was 17,65 billion dollars. However, Russia is almost equal in terms of expenditures on space with the united Europe: the budget of the European Space Agency (European Space Agency - ESA) in 2014 was estimated at 4,10 billion euros (5,62 billion dollars). However, this comparison is true without taking into account the funds spent by the countries of the Old World on the national space programs in addition to the European one. In addition, there is no reliable information about the space budget of China, which may well take third or even second place in the world.
It should be noted that such a significant increase in the space budget of Russia did not occur under any particular priority program, as in the case of NASA with the landing of astronauts on the Moon in 60-s. Rather, it was a return to the level of financing the industry in Soviet times. The objectives of such a budget growth are the maintenance of the status of Russia as one of the leading space powers by 2020, and the strengthening of this status by 2030.
Indeed, it does not make sense to count on the quick effect of a sharp increase in financial investments in the space industry. The implementation of space programs in the world is at least five years. Given the degradation over the past 20 years of Russian design bureaus, who have lost most of their specialists, these deadlines will increase even more. Therefore, it makes no sense to expect, along with the spasmodic growth of the budget, the same rapid growth of the orbital constellation, expansion of space research, improvement of their quality and reliability.
Actually, the country's leadership did not expect a fast "cosmic miracle" from Roscosmos. The agency was tasked to spend the budget wisely and restructure the industry to improve its performance.
The distribution of budgetary funds for specific space programs is still a disproportion. “Until recently, manned programs ranged from 40 to 58 percent of the space budget to the detriment of other areas,” stated Vladimir Putin. - As a result, we have fallen behind the world level in a number of areas, for example, by means of remote sensing of the Earth, personal satellite communications systems, registration and rescue of objects in distress, and so on. A noticeable separation from the leading space countries was formed in our country and in the technologies that provide programs for the development of the so-called deep space. Of course, we must preserve everything that has been accumulated in the manned part, but other directions must also be tightened. ”
In addition to “more than 40 percent” (and this is no less than 70 billion rubles) on large-scale spending of Roscosmos budget in 2014, manned cosmonautics are the costs of maintaining the group and developing the global navigation system GLONASS (12,6% or 21,56 billion rubles). Another 12,2 percent (20,8 billion rubles) is directed to the development of Plesetsk and Baikonur, the construction of a new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region. In addition, according to Roskosmos management, about 38 more percent of the budget is allocated for the creation of new and production of existing launch vehicles (apparently, the head of the agency took the construction of launch complexes for new missiles to this article). And only 9 percent remains on all spacecraft, except manned (as of 2013 year). Therefore, the space agency was forced to reconsider priorities.
The change of priorities has led to the formation of the “space front” - managers of enterprises that are the main recipients of budget funds, which they must now lose. An example of such an open opposition was the confrontation in 2011 – 2012 that was led by Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin and the general director of Russian Space Systems (RKS), the chief designer of the GLONASS space navigation system, Yuri Urlichich. In the war with Roscosmos, the RKS used even the methods of "black PR", spreading disinformation about Popovkin, discrediting his honor and dignity.
In March, 2012 appeared on the Internet an open letter to the Deputy Director General of the RCN, Ivan Golub, in which he called on the head of Roscosmos to resign. In response, Roscosmos launched an anti-corruption campaign against RKS, as a result of which Urlichić was removed from his post as GLONASS chief designer, and in December 2012 of the year - RKS general director. The Department of Internal Affairs on the Moscow Metro opened a criminal case against the leadership of the RCC suspected of embezzling 6,5 a billion rubles allocated for the development of the GLONASS system. In May, 2014 th, former deputy Urlichich in the RKS, Andrei Chimiris and Aleksey Kuzenkov, were charged with fraud.
However, the most intransigent “space frontier” during the entire existence of the space agency in Russia (it was formed in February 1992) has always remained the head company in the field of manned flights - the Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) Energia. S. p. Queen. With her, the “wars” were going on during the time of the first head of the agency, Yuri Koptev (1992 – 2004), who was opposed by the president of Energia, Yuri Semenov (the head of the RSC was in 1989 – 2005). This continued under Anatolia Perminov (2004 – 2011), whose main opponent was the head of Energia, Nikolay Sevastyanov (2005 – 2007). Nothing has changed under Popovkin, and now, with the current head of the agency, Oleg Ostapenko, who was already opposed by Vitaly Lopot (headed "Energy" from 2007 onwards). The methods of counteraction are the same here: in April, the 2014-th Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District opened a criminal case against Lopota, suspecting him of abuse of power.
Spacecraft and "aimless" ships
The recipient of the very “40 – 58 percent of the budget” of RSC Energia, naturally, did not want to lose state funding. The corporation regularly sought to include all new manned projects in the federal space program of Russia. From 2000, RSC insisted on the creation of the Clipper reusable spacecraft. The space agency involved in this project insisted on revising the requirements for the ship, which was transformed in 2009 into a more versatile manned transport vehicle of a new generation (PTK NP). In 2006, RSC Energia developed a concept for the development of Russian manned cosmonautics over the 2006 – 2030 years. It envisaged the gradual creation of an industrial transport space system, the exploration of near-Earth space, the Moon, and flights to Mars. It was proposed that the Russian segment of the ISS should not be reduced to orbit along with the entire station in 2020, but be undocked and turned into a new national, permanently operating orbital station.
“Most of the accidents occurred due to errors in the manufacture of elements of the carrier and their assembly, not“ caught ”by subsequent checks”
In April 2013, Vitaly Lopota unveiled a slightly different scenario for the development of manned astronautics. After the flooding of the International Space Station (ISS), it envisaged the creation of an internationally visited platform at the Lagrange point (the position allowing the spacecraft to be constantly in the same position relative to the Earth and the Moon), and in the long run - international manned expeditions to asteroids, to the Moon, into orbit and the surface of mars. In the opinion of the RKK President, such a program could become the driving force for the technological advancement of the entire engineering industry in Russia, as in the 80s, the Energy program Buran. Lopota also called on the Russian government to start developing a new super-heavy class launch vehicle capable of putting tons of payload into 70 orbit. The corporation has already developed a proposal for such a rocket.
If we leave aside questions of the influence of space programs on Russian engineering as a whole, as well as space competition (which essentially ceased in 1969 after the Americans landed on the Moon), suffice it to say that during the space age 56 years only telecommunication satellite systems became business profitable to their operators. Gradually, systems of photographing the Earth from space and navigation come to payback. Manned cosmonautics is akin to basic science, which does not bring short-term profit. The only exception in this area for Russia was the “space transport”: the delivery of foreign astronauts to the ISS. However, this type of business could not provide even the work of RSC Energia, becoming only a small bonus to state budget financing.
In total, for the 55 flights of foreign astronauts on Mir and the ISS under contracts with NASA in the period from 1994 to 2017, Russia received 3,21 a billion dollars a year. In addition, eight professional astronauts and eight space tourists flew from 2000 to 2009-th to the ISS, for the flight of each of which Russia received 20 – 22 million dollars, that is, a total of about 330 million dollars. The total profit from manned flights during 22 years was 3,54 billion dollars - one and a half times less than the current annual space budget.
The use of manned flights in the national interest has long lost specific and clear goals in Russia. In the USSR, since the end of the 60-s, a program for the development of orbital stations was being implemented, which resulted in the Salyut and Mir stations. The next stage is the Mir-2 project, integrated into 1992 – 1993 in the ISS. However, without a diverse scientific program in which institutes and other research organizations would be interested, the meaning of maintaining and developing the Russian segment of the ISS is lost. Currently, according to the Russian program on the ISS, mainly biomedical experiments are carried out, the main purpose of which is to test a long flight to Mars. A new direction was the material science experiment “Plasma Crystal” to produce unique alloys that cannot be created on Earth due to gravity. However, most of the possible studies that could be performed at the orbital station have already been carried out. Now the Russian crew is mainly engaged in maintaining the station’s proper operation, thus ensuring the implementation of a scientific program in the American segment.
However, Energia insists on the continuation of programs of orbital stations, for the delivery of crews to which and the supply of cargo, and is developed primarily PTC NP. Plans for manned flights to the moon, and especially Mars, have never been officially approved either by Roskosmos, or even by the Russian government. Thus, the new ship is created under the old, already achieved goals. If, shortly after the launch of the PTK NP flight (the first launch is scheduled for 2017 – 2018 years), the ISS in full will be de-orbited (this operation is scheduled for 2020), then this target for the new ship disappears. Thus, there is no need for this project at all.
The existing tasks, including the fulfillment of international obligations under the ISS project, may well be performed by the Soyuz family ships. The modernization currently being carried out will make it possible to reduce the weight of service systems, thereby increasing the size of the delivered payload, increase the power supply system capacity, ship comfort for the crew, and increase its reliability as a whole. With external similarity with the project of the very first “Union” of the middle of 60, the modern ship has nothing to do with it in terms of systems and capabilities. The dimensions and masses of the modernized Soyuz fully meet the requirements for manned vehicles for near-earth flights and the supply of orbital stations.
Applied targets and "new old" rockets
The creation of the NTC NP without the goals clearly defined by the Federal Space Program for it leads to the fact that Roskosmos regularly delays the work on the project, seeking to redistribute funds to more pragmatic directions. The main one is rightly called cosmic communication. Among the priorities - coverage of the Arctic zone. It is also planned to increase the capacity of communications and television systems in geostationary orbit. According to agency estimates, it is necessary to increase the number of transmitters on communication satellites by an order of magnitude, up to 2000 trunks, which requires a grouping of 44 spacecraft.
An important priority for Roskosmos remains the shooting of the Earth from space. Until recently, only one Resource DK spacecraft was used for this purpose. He provided the need for Russian buyers of images of the Earth only for 10 percent, the remaining 90 percent were purchased abroad. In 2013, two new satellites of this type were launched. Roscosmos plans to bring the number of such devices to 2015 by 16. At the same time, the share of domestic images in the domestic market will increase to 60 percent, and to 2020 year - to 90 percent.
Quite pragmatically, the agency approached one of its main tasks - ensuring Russia's guaranteed access to space. Roskosmos is financing the maintenance of ground-based space infrastructure facilities at the Plesetsk and Baikonur cosmodromes, from where launches of Rokot light-launch vehicles, Soyuz-2 medium rocket and Proton-M heavy launch vehicles are conducted today. Again, despite the external similarity with the missiles of the past decades, these are fairly new, cost-effective and efficient carriers. Their engines, control systems, equipment have been repeatedly replaced since the first flights.
Today in the world there is an acute problem of cheap access to space. Of course, it is cheaper to use the existing missiles and their launch complexes, without taking the risks and costs of creating new ones. All types of Russian carriers used for launches of domestic devices are in high demand abroad. For example, the commercial launches of the Proton brought Russia about 5,7 billion dollars (from 1996 of the year they were executed 83). Europe in general went to an unprecedented step, having built a launch facility for the newest version of the Soyuz-2 rocket - Soyuz-ST at its launch site in French Guiana. From there, five commercial launches have already been completed.
In addition to upgrading old rockets, Roskosmos also finances the creation of a new family of carriers, the Angara. In fact, this project went to the agency from the Ministry of Defense of Russia, which, even in 1992, announced a competition for the creation of a heavy-class launch vehicle for its needs. In 1994, the winner was the Space Center. M. V. Khrunichev. In 1997, during the liquidation of the military space forces, the Ministry of Defense refused to fully finance all stages of the Angara project, remaining only a customer of rocket launches and co-financing the construction of the launch complex. However, the project was already at a fairly advanced stage. Therefore, the civilian space agency has taken on the burden of further funding the development work. Its volume in the framework of the Federal Space Program in the 2000-s was a significant part of the Roscosmos budget: in 2006 – 2014-m - 3,288 billion rubles (about 100 million dollars at the current rate). Of this amount, 2,68 billion rubles (81,5%) was allocated from the federal budget and 0,608 billion rubles (18,5%) from funds invested in space activities by the implementing organizations.
Angara carriers were developed in the middle of the 90-ies, in a period of acute lack of funding. Therefore, already existing technologies were used to the maximum extent in their design. The engine for the first stage of the RD-191 was made on the basis of the RD-170 engine of the Energia rocket, for the second stage the RD-0124 was taken from the Soyuz-2 project. To create a large range of rockets of different payloads for various purposes with limited funding, it was decided to make two types of universal rocket modules, from which carriers of different types could be assembled - from light to heavy. This approach led to not the most optimal parameters of the missiles and the deterioration of their flight characteristics in comparison with other carriers.
After a twenty-year period of the creation of 9 July 2014, the first flight tests of the light version of the "Angara" took place. The launch of the heavy version is planned until the end of 2014. The calls from competitors of the Khrunichev Center (the same “Energy”, “TsSKB-Progress”, etc.) calls to abandon the project and create the best version of the Roscosmos missile does not take into account: taking on an alternative project would mean losing another decade and billions of rubles. The relatively high cost of Angara missiles in the first launches will inevitably decrease.
Another quite expensive project of Roskosmos is the creation of the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur Region. It is considered as an alternative to Baikonur and partially to Plesetsk. The choice of location was largely dictated by the national task of developing the Far East, stimulating enterprises in this region. Obviously, taking into account this “supra-space” task, the government of the Russian Federation consciously went on increasing the cost of building the East and increasing the cost of its operation in the future. It is planned to allocate about 2016 billion rubles for the construction of objects of the Vostochny cosmodrome before 164. The first space launch using the Soyuz-2 rocket is to take place from East in 2015. And by 2018, the launch site for the Angara carriers is planned to be built at the cosmodrome.
Agency, holdings, corporation
Given this set of problems and challenges, the Russian rocket and space industry has long been faced with the need to restructure the industry to consolidate its resources and improve manageability. The possibility of the existence of a “space front” was also a consequence of the management weakness of the space agency. Roscosmos did not have the authority to conduct its pragmatic, although sometimes unpopular decisions.
These issues have been raised regularly since the beginning of the space agency. But neither Yuri Koptev, nor Anatoly Perminov, nor Vladimir Popovkin had enough weight to change the situation: the Russian space industry remained a set of several hundred self-sufficient firms. In the absence of sufficient state funding in 1990 – 2000-ies, these firms often competed with each other, invading other people's areas of work, without disdaining dumping. In addition, the poor implementation in these years of a whole series of space projects, which failed in whole or in part, demonstrated that almost all Russian space enterprises do not have sufficient engineering potential to carry out such developments at the required level of complexity and reliability. The integration of enterprises would allow to solve this personnel problem by redistributing work between the design bureaus on separate parts of one project.
Plans for the reorganization of the Russian space industry have been discussed for two decades. In 90-ies, Yuri Koptev sought to recreate the former Ministry of General Engineering based on the space agency, which was in charge of all the USSR rocket and space enterprises. At the end of 2006, Anatoly Perminov announced plans to integrate the industry under his jurisdiction into three or four large holdings, but only by 2015. Until that time, it was planned to create 12 – 15 integrated structures from design bureaus, serial factories and some cooperation enterprises working on some projects.
Vladimir Popovkin proposed in 2011 to form two large rocket and space holdings based on the Khrunichev Center and the Energia Corporation. However, other enterprises, with the support of a number of government officials, essentially blocked this project. This situation is generally similar to the problems that arose when creating other integrated structures in the Russian defense industry - the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern, Tactical Missile Weapons Corporation, the United Aircraft Building Corporation, the United Engine Building Corporation, the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
In 2012, Roscosmos launched an initiative to create a state corporation based on the agency, similar to Rosatom and Rostec. The Roscosmos State Corporation was to be empowered to develop state policy in the field of space activities, conclude government contracts, distribute budget financing among enterprises, and license their activities. All state-owned shares of space enterprises were to be transferred to the state corporation. The contradiction of this proposal was that if Roscosmos was reorganized into a state corporation in the government of the Russian Federation, the body responsible for implementing space activities on behalf of the state would disappear. The situation with Russia's participation in international space programs has also become uncertain: the state agency represented by the space agency also concludes agreements on them.
In order to solve the tasks of restructuring and consolidating the rocket and space industry, developing an optimal system of its management, in August 2012, on behalf of the Chairman of the Russian Government, an interdepartmental working group was established under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. She eventually rejected the project to create a state corporation. Following the results of this work, Rogozin noted: “At the present stage, it is necessary to preserve and strengthen the role of the federal executive body - Roskosmos. And the simultaneous phased consolidation and organization of the rocket and space industry into large holdings in the form of open joint-stock companies, whose shares are wholly owned by the Russian Federation. ” Thus, everything remained in the position in which it was before.
Only 9 in October 2013, Vladimir Putin approved a plan for reforming the space industry. At a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said: “In order for the industry to be managed, it is necessary to save it from parallelism. Today, unfortunately, we have different enterprises of the rocket and space industry concentrated in ten (integrated) structures and there are a lot of organizations that operate outside of them as independent ones. Each works according to its own plan, each uses its own element base, that is, universal technical, technological solutions are practically not visible. ”
Rogozin proposed to divide the functions of Roscosmos, which combined in its person both the state customer and the performer, and create two structures. The first, Roskosmos proper, will retain the functions of the federal authority responsible for implementing the space policy and forming the state order for the development and production of rocket and space technology. The second structure was the United Rocket and Space Corporation (ORKK), which will be responsible for the execution of the state order.
Already 10 in October 2013, Vladimir Popovkin, who insisted on a different version of the Roscosmos reform, was dismissed from his post. Colonel-General Oleg Ostapenko, deputy defense minister for science, was appointed head of Roscosmos, who from June 2008 to November 2012 was the commander of the Space Forces (in November 2011, they were transformed into the Aerospace Defense Forces). Ostapenko became the third former commander of the Space Forces, then appointed head of the civil space agency, for ten years. Such a commitment in appointing "space" generals to the post of head of Roscosmos is not exclusively a Russian tradition. The current NASA administrator is a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, former military astronaut Charles Bolden.
Igor Komarov was appointed head of the ORCC, in 2009 – 2013 he was AvtoVAZ’s director. 3 February 2014-th Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the formation of an SQAR on the basis of the Research Institute for Space Instrumentation. 6 March 2014, the ORCC was registered.
ORKK - open joint stock company with 100-percent state participation. In the future, federal-owned shares of large enterprises and organizations of the rocket and space industry, as well as nine federal state unitary enterprises (after their incorporation with subsequent transfer of shares) will be made into the authorized capital of the corporation. Two years are given for holding all the events related to the creation of the corporation. Officially, the corporation declares as its goal “the comprehensive reform of the rocket and space industry, that is, the methods and methods of production”.
Prospects are foggy
Russia's space activities have long demanded a serious correction. The future of the whole industry depends on whether it is carried out according to the announced plan and in full.
A serious increase in the budget should contribute to the solution of personnel problems: the cosmonautics that has again become financially sufficient will apparently attract both young and already experienced personnel. Subject to the technical re-equipment of enterprises and the improvement of technological discipline, it is realistic to raise the level of quality and reliability of equipment to an acceptable level.
To speed up this process, Roskosmos seeks to participate in major international programs. Thus, the requirements for quality and reliability are immediately set at the level of world standards. These are the ISS projects already mentioned, the launches of the Soyuz-2 rocket from the Guiana Space Center, the supply of engines for US carriers (in addition to the NK-33 for Antares, the RD-180 engines for the Atlas V rocket family are also supplied). In 2013, the Roscosmos and the European Space Agency signed an agreement on cooperation in the field of exploration of Mars and other solar system bodies by means of robots. The program includes a joint study of Mars (the ExoMars program, which involves the launch of two automatic stations in January 2016 of the year and April of 2018) and Mercury (Russian equipment at the European-Japanese station BepiColombo, which is scheduled to launch in August of 2015), and also Moon (program delivery soil) and satellites of Jupiter (landing Russian probe on Ganymede). Thanks to the agreement, Russia will be able to return to the studies of other bodies of the Solar System after the Phobos-Grunt project, which ended immediately after the launch of the 2011 year in November.
There is also a need to develop a new Federal space program of Russia. It must meet the increased level of funding and become more pragmatic than the existing one. Thus, the disproportion between the manned space program and applied projects in which Russian consumers are really interested (communications, navigation, shooting of the Earth) should be corrected. In the end, having a space budget even more than Russia, Europe does not have at all its independent manned program, contenting itself with participation mainly in American projects. At the same time, the ESA does not feel injured and flawed.
However, the main guarantee for the success of space policy of Russia in the near future should be a change in the management of the industry itself, a departure from the Soviet principles that successfully worked in a planned, tightly regulated economy, but not effective in a free market.
Who will make these changes now is not yet completely clear, since the process of restructuring the industry is just beginning. Obviously, the head of Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, must organize the process of developing a new state policy in the field of cosmonautics. The share of Igor Komarov is a change in the situation with the quality of the production of existing equipment and the organization of work in promising areas. Only decisive steps by Ostapenko and Komarov, aimed at changing the situation in the industry, and their positive results will be perceived by the state leadership as confirmation of the correctness of the chosen course of reforming the rocket and space industry of Russia.
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