The Times kirjutab, et putleril närvid läbi, et vanasti nii võimas kosmosetööstus vat, et varemetes nüüd. Koos Ukraina sõjaga läks kogu koostöö läänega ja ligipääs tech-ile mida hädasti vaja. Kliente ka vähem ja hiina ja india lennutavad asju kosmosesse iseseisvalt ja edukalt.
Ehitatakse miskit uut linnakut maskvaas, aga ehitus haigelt kalliks läind tänu sõjast tingitud tööjõupuudusele ja ajakavast aastaid maas. Andis kinga roscosmose juhile.
Putin fired the head of the space agency, Yuri Borisov, but the real reason the Kremlin is falling behind India and China is a shortage of money and components. The removal of Borisov after less than 3 years in the job underlined the Kremlin’s displeasure over recent setbacks in space exploration, traditionally a source of national pride.
Western sanctions triggered by the invasion of Ukraine have taken their toll, just as China sends astronauts to its Tiangong space station and India plans a Venus orbiter mission.
According to Russian media, main reason for ousting Borisov was dissatisfaction with ballooning construction costs for the 25 billion rouble National Space Centre, a huge new manufacturing and office complex being built in Moscow to house various elements of the Russian space industry in one place. The centre was supposed to be finished in 2023.
Andrey Pertsev, a political analyst, said that Putin was struggling to accept that the invasion of Ukraine has pushed up prices for materials and reduced the labour pool for construction. “While giving priority to the war, Putin does not want other projects to be sidelined, even temporarily,” he wrote. “The president’s ultra-optimism is based on the premise that Russia’s economy is fine and that there should be enough money in the budget for everything. If the funding is not enough, it is the problem of lower level officials. Borisov can be called the first victim of this approach.” There’s also wider frustration over fewer rocket launches, a failed moon mission and delays in satellite production. Borisov had little room for manoeuvre as the war in Ukraine progressed. Russia lost access to space-grade electronic components and advanced machine tools made in Europe, USA, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. At the same time, billions of dollars in revenue flowing to Russia from European and American clients for rocket engines and satellite launching services slowed to a trickle. The isolation which followed Putin’s invasion in 2022 has had a “devastating” effect on the sector, according to Anatoly Zak of the RussianSpaceWeb.
Russia’s most ambitious plans for manned and unmanned flight were curtailed as a result and joint ventures with western partners were cancelled. One was the ExoMars rover mission with the European Space Agency. Meanwhile, the initiatives which Borisov did promote looked outlandish, such as a plan for a “huge, cyclopean” nuclear-powered cargo spaceship and a joint project with China to build a nuclear power unit on the moon.
Roscosmos said that the launch of the unmanned Luna 25 craft would prove that the country “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface”. Luna 25 span out of control on approach and crashed. Humiliatingly for the Kremlin, India’s Vikram lander made a perfect descent on the south side of the moon a few days later.
Another source of annoyance in Moscow is slow progress on Sfera, an initiative that Putin announced in 2018 to rival Starlink. Borisov said last year that Russia wanted to ramp up production of satellites and have 2,600 in orbit by 2036, a tenfold increase. But he admitted that Russia was far behind Washington and Beijing and could produce a maximum of 40 a year. Satellites would have to be simplified because of the shortage of components, and there would be growing dependence on supplies from Beijing. Moscow would be unable to compete with China or India in the long term said one analyst.
New boss, Dmitry Bakanov (39), former deputy transport minister, already has a trump card to play: his father worked in the industry and he was born at Baikonur Cosmodrome.
