The Russian Federal Space Agency, commonly called Roscosmos and
abbreviated as FKA and RKA, is the government agency responsible for the
Russian space science program and general aerospace research. It was
previously the Russian Aviation and Space Agency.
The headquarters of Roscosmos are located in Moscow, while the Main
Mission Control space flight operations center is located in the nearby city of
Korolev. The Cosmonauts Training Centre is in Star City. The Launch facilities
used are Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and Plesetsk Cosmodrome in
northern Russia which is used primarily for unmanned, military flights.
The current General Director since 21 January 2015 is Igor Komarov. In 2015
the Russian government announced it was merging Roscosmos with the United Rocket
and Space Corporation, the re-nationalised Russian space industry
to create the Roscosmos State Corporation.
History The Soviet space program did not have
central executive agencies. Instead, its organizational architecture was
multi-centered; it was the design bureaus and the council of designers
that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central
agency after the separation of Russia from the Soviet Union was therefore a
new development. Russian Space Agency was formed on February 25, 1992, by a
decree of President Yeltsin. Yuri Koptev, who had previously worked with
designing Mars landers at NPO Lavochkin, became the agency's first director.Later
renamed to Roscosmos. In the early years, the agency suffered
from lack of authority as the powerful design bureaus fought to protect their
own spheres of operation and to survive. For example, the decision to keep Mir in
operation beyond 1999 was not taken by the agency; instead, it was made by the
private shareholder board of the Energia design bureau. Another example is that
the decision to develop the new Angara rocket was rather a function of
Khrunichev's ability to attract resources than a conscious long-term
decision by the agency. = Crisis years =
The 1990s saw serious financial problems because of decreased cash flow, which
encouraged Roscosmos to improvise and seek other ways to keep space programs
running. This resulted in Roscosmos' leading role in commercial satellite
launches and space tourism. While scientific missions, such as
interplanetary probes or astronomy missions during these years played a
very small role,although roscosmos has connections with Russian aerospace
forces, its budget is not part of the defense budget of the country, Roscosmos
managed to operate the space station Mir well past its planned lifespan,
contribute to the International Space Station, and continue to fly additional
Soyuz and Progress missions. In March 2004, director Yuri Koptev was
replaced by Anatoly Perminov, who had previously served as the first commander
of the Space Forces. = Improved situation in 2005–2006 =
The Russian economy boomed throughout 2005 from high prices for exports, such
as oil and gas, the outlook for future funding in 2006 appeared more favorable.
This resulted in the Russian Duma approving a budget of 305 billion rubles
for the Space Agency from 2006 January to 2015, with overall space expenditures
in Russia total about 425 billion rubles for the same time period. The budget for
2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles, which is a 33% increase from the 2005
budget. Under the current 10-year budget approved, the budget of the Space Agency
shall increase 5–10% per year, providing the space agency with a constant influx
of money. In addition to the budget, Roscosmos plans to have over 130 billion
rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and
commercial space launches. It is around the time US-based The Planetary Society
entered a partnership with Roscosmos. New science missions: Koronas Foton,
Spektr R, Intergelizond, Spektr RG, Spektr UV, Spektr M, Celsta and Terion
Resumption of Bion missions with Bion-M New weather satellites Elektro L and
Elektro P = 2006–2012 =
The federal space budget for the year 2009 was left unchanged despite the
global economic crisis, standing at about 82 billion rubles. In 2011, the
government spent 115 billion rubles in the national space programs.
The proposed project core budget for 2013 to be around 128.3 billion rubles.
The budget for the whole space program is: 169.8 billion rubles.. By 2015, the
amount of the budget can be increased to 199.2 billion rubles.
Priorities of the Russian space program include the new Angara rocket family and
development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing
spacecraft. The GLONASS global navigation satellite system has for many
years been one of the top priorities and has been given its own budget line in
the federal space budget. In 2007, GLONASS received 9.9 billion rubles, and
under the terms of a directive signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2008,
an additional $2.6 billion will be allocated for its development.
Space Station funding issues Due to International Space Station
involvements, up to 50% of Russia's space budget is spent on the manned
space program as of 2009. Some observers have pointed out that this has a
detrimental effect on other aspects of space exploration, and that the other
space powers spend much lesser proportions of their overall budgets on
maintaining human presence in orbit. Despite the considerably improved
budget, attention of legislative and executive authorities, positive media
coverage and broad support among the population, the Russian space program
continues to face several problems. Wages in the space industry are low; the
average age of employees is high, and much of the equipment is obsolete. On
the positive side, many companies in the sector have been able to profit from
contracts and partnerships with foreign companies; several new systems such as
new rocket upper stages have been developed in recent years; investments
have been made to production lines, and companies have started to pay more
attention to educating a new generation of engineers and technicians.
= 2011: New director = On 29 April 2011, Perminov was replaced
with Vladimir Popovkin as the director of Roscosmos. The 65-year-old Perminov
was over the legal age for state officials, and had received some
criticism after a failed GLONASS launch in December 2010. Popovkin is a former
commander of the Russian Space Forces and First Deputy Defense Minister of
Russia. = 2013-2015 reorganization of the
Russian space sector = As a result of a series of reliability
problems, and proximate to the failure of a July 2013 Proton M launch, a major
reorganization of the Russian space industry was undertaken. The United
Rocket and Space Corporation was formed as a joint-stock corporation by the
government in August 2013 to consolidate the Russian space sector. Deputy Prime
Minister Dmitry Rogozin said "the failure-prone space sector is so
troubled that it needs state supervision to overcome its problems." Three days
following the Proton M launch failure, the Russian government had announced
that "extremely harsh measures" would be taken "and spell the end of the
[Russian] space industry as we know it." Preliminary information indicated that
the government intends to reorganize in such a way as to "preserve and enhance
the Roscosmos space agency." More detailed plans released in October
2013 called for a re-nationalization of the "troubled space industry," with
sweeping reforms including a new "unified command structure and reducing
redundant capabilities, acts that could lead to tens of thousands of layoffs."
The Russian space sector employs about 250,000 people, while the United States
has about 70,000 people working in the field. "Russian space productivity is
eight times lower than America’s, with companies duplicating one anothers’ work
and operating at about 40 percent efficiency."
Under the 2013 plan, Roscosmos "will act as a federal executive body and
contracting authority for programs to be implemented by the industry."
Current programs = ISS involvement =
The Russian Space Agency is one of the partners in the International Space
Station program; it contributed the core space modules Zarya and Zvezda, which
were both launched by Proton rockets and later were joined by NASA's Unity
Module. The Rassvet module was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis and will
be primarily used for cargo storage and as a docking port for visiting
spacecraft. The Nauka module is the last component of the ISS, due to be launched
in Nov 2015. Roscosmos is furthermore responsible for expedition crew launches
by Soyuz-TMA spacecraft and resupplies the space station with Progress space
transporters. After the initial ISS contract with NASA expired, RKA and
NASA, with the approval of the US government, entered into a space
contract running until 2011, according to which Roscosmos will sell NASA spots
on Soyuz spacecraft for approximately $21 million per person each way as well
as provide Progress transport flights. RKA has announced that according to this
arrangement, manned Soyuz flights will be doubled to 4 per year and Progress
flights also doubled to 8 per year beginning in 2008.
RKA also provides space tourism for fare-paying passengers to ISS through
the Space Adventures company. As of 2009, six space tourists have contracted
with Roscosmos and have flown into space, each for an estimated fee of at
least $20 million. = Science programs =
RKA operates a number of programs for earth science, communication, and
scientific research. Future projects include the Soyuz successor, the
Prospective Piloted Transport System, scientific robotic missions to one of
the Mars moons as well as an increase in Lunar orbit research satellites.
Luna-Glob Moon orbiter with penetrators Venera-D Venus lander
Fobos-Grunt Mars mission = Rockets =
Roscosmos is using a launch family of several rockets, the most famous of them
is the R-7, commonly known as the Soyuz rocket, capable of launching about 7.5
tons into low Earth orbit. The Proton rocket has a lift capacity of over 20
tons to LEO. Smaller rockets include Cosmos-3M, the German-Russian
cooperation Rockot and other Stations. Currently rocket development encompasses
both a new rocket system, Angara, as well as enhancements of the Soyuz
rocket, Soyuz-2 and Soyuz-2-3. Two modifications of the Soyuz, the
Soyuz-2.1a and Soyuz-2.1b has already been successfully tested, enhancing the
launch capacity to 8.5 tons to LEO. = New piloted spacecraft =
One of RKA's projects that has made a large impact on the media in 2005 is
Kliper, a small lifting body reusable spacecraft. While Roscosmos has reached
out to ESA and JAXA as well as others to share development costs of the project,
it also has stated that it will go forward with the project even without
support of other space agencies. This statement was backed by the
above-described approval of its budget for 2006–2015, which includes the
necessary funding of Kliper. However, the Kliper program was cancelled, to be
replaced by the new Prospective Piloted Transport System proposal.
= Space systems = Create HEO space system "Arctic" to
address the hydrological and meteorological problems in the Arctic
region and the northern areas of the Earth, with the help of two spacecraft
"Arktika-M" and in the future within the system can create a communications
satellite "Arktika-MS" and radar satellites "Arktika-R."
The launch of two satellites "Obzor-R"(Review-R) Remote Sensing of
the Earth, with the AESA radar and four spacecraft "Obzor-O"(Review-O) to
capture the Earth's surface in normal and infrared light in a broad swath of
80 km with a resolution of 10 meters. The first two satellites of the projects
planned for launch in 2015. Gonets. Civilian low Earth orbit
communication satellite system. = Gecko Mating Experiment =
The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos launched on 19 July 2014 the
Foton-M4 satellite containing among other animals and plants, a group of
five geckos. The five geckos, four females and one male, were used as a
part of the Gecko-F4 research program aimed at measuring the effects of
weightlessness on the lizards’ ability to procreate and develop in the harsh
environment. However, soon after the spacecraft exited the atmosphere,
mission control lost contact with the vessel which led to an attempt to
reestablish communication that was only achieved later in the mission. When the
satellite returned to earth after its planned two-month mission was cut short
to 44 days, the geckos were reported by the space agency researchers to have all
perished during the course of their travels.
The exact cause that led to the deaths of the geckos was declared unknown by
the scientific team in charge of the project. Reports from the Institute of
Medical and Biological Problems in Russia have indicated that the lizards
had been dead for at least a week prior to their return to earth. A number of
those connected to the mission have theorized that a failure in the vessel’s
heating system may have caused the cold blooded reptiles to freeze to death.
Included in the mission were a number of fruit flies, plants, and mushrooms which
all survived the mission. Launch control
The military counterpart of the RKA is the Military Space Forces. The VKO
controls Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch facility. The RKA and VKO share
control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the RKA reimburses the VKO for the
wages of many of the flight controllers during civilian launches. The RKA and
VKO also share control of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. It
has been announced that Russia is to build another spaceport in Vostochny.
The Vostochny Cosmodrome is scheduled to be finished by 2018.
Space industry of Russia Following the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991, many of the former Soviet Design Bureaus transformed into private
aerospace companies while some remained as state research centers.
Historic Russian space gallery = People =
= Spacecraft = = Launch vehicles =
See also Ministry of General Machine Building of
the USSR TsNIIMash is the Central Research
Institute of Machine Building, an institute of the Russian aeronautics and
space formed in 1946 List of cosmonauts
List of Russian aerospace engineers Timeline of Russian inventions and
technology records International Space Olympics
Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" References
External links (Russian) RKA home page in Russian
RKA home page in English Russian Space Program
The future of the Russian space program. Infographics from RIA Novosti.