Logo of Roscosmos |
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| Established | 1992 (formerly the Soviet space program, 1922-1991) |
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| Headquarters | Moscow |
| Primary spaceport | Baikonur Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome |
| Administrator | Vladimir Popovkin |
| Budget | 115 billion RUB ($3,8 billion) (2011)[1] |
| Website | roscosmos.ru |
The Russian Federal Space Agency (Russian: Федеральное космическое агентство России Federal'noye kosmicheskoye agentstvo Rossii), commonly called Roscosmos (Роскосмос Roskosmos) and abbreviated as FKA (ФКА) and RKA (РКА), is the government agency responsible for the Russian space science program and general aerospace research. It was previously the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Russian: Российское авиационно-космическое агентство Rossiyskoe aviatsionno-kosmicheskoe agentsvo, commonly known as "Rosaviakosmos").
Headquarters of Roscosmos are located in Moscow. Main Mission Control space flight operations center is located in a nearby city of Korolev. Cosmonauts Training Centre (GCTC) is in Star City. Launch facilities used are Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (with most launches taking place there, both manned and unmanned) and Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia used primarily for unmanned flights of military designations.
The current General Director, since 29 April 2011, is Vladimir Popovkin.[2]
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The Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies. Instead, its organizatorial 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—later renamed to Roskosmos—first director.[3]
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.[3]
The 1990s saw serious financial problems because of the decreased cash flow, which encouraged Roskosmos to improvise and seek other ways to keep space programs running. This resulted in Roskosmos' 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, Roskosmos 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.[3]
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 (about 11 billion USD) for the Space Agency from 2006 to 2015, with overall space expenditures in Russia total about 425 billion rubles for the same time period.[4] The budget for 2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles (about 900 million USD), 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, Roskosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and commercial space launches.
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.[2][5]
The federal space budget for the year 2009 was left unchanged despite the global economic crisis, standing at about 82 billion rubles ($2.4 billion).[6] In 2011, the government is planning to spend 115 billion rubles ($3.8 bln) in the national space programs.[7]
Current priorities of the Russian space program include the new Angara rocket family and development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft.[6] 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 ($360 million), 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.[8]
Due to International Space Station involvements, up to 50% of Russia's space budget is spent on the manned space program. 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.[9]
Despite the considerably improved budget, attention of legislative and execute authorities, positive media coverage and broad support among the population, the Russian space program continues to face several problems.[10] Wages in the space industry are low; the average age of employees is high (46 years in 2007),[10] and much of the equipment is obsolete.[11] 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.[3][11]
The key elements of the current space plan, introduced in 2005, are:[3]
The Russian Space Agency is one of the partners in the International Space Station (ISS) 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[13] and will be primarily used for cargo storage and as a docking port for visiting spacecraft. The Nauka module will be the last component of the ISS and is expected to launch May 2012.[14][15] Roskosmos 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 Roskosmos will sell NASA spots on Soyuz spacecraft for approximately $21 million per person each way (thus $42 million to and back from the ISS per person) as well as provide Progress transport flights ($50 million per Progress as outlined in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study study [1]). 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 Roskosmos and have flown into space, each for an estimated fee of at least $20 million (USD).
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.
Roskosmos 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 (LEO). The Proton rocket (or UR-500K) 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.
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 Roskosmos 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.
The military counterpart of the RKA is the Military Space Forces (VKS). The VKS controls Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch facility. The RKA and VKS share control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where the RKA reimburses the VKS for the wages of many of the flight controllers during civilian launches. The RKA and VKS 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.
Many of the former Soviet Design Bureaus transformed into private aerospace companies and some remained as state research centers.
| Soviet OKB (if applicable) | New organization | Ownership | Notable products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Korolev | RKK Energia | private | |
| NPO Lavochkin | |||
| NPO Mashinostroyeniya | |||
| Glushko | NPO Energomash | ||
| Chélomei | Khrunichev | state | |
| TsSKB-Progress | state | ||
| NPO Molniya | |||
| NPO PM | |||
| NPO Polyot | |||
| MKB Raduga | |||
| Kuznetsov | |||
| Khimavtomatika | |||
| Makeyev | |||
| JSC Khartron | private | ||
| Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology | |||
| related Ukrainian organizations: | |||
| Yangel | Yuzhnoye Design Bureau | ||
| Makarov | Yuzhmash | ||
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