The chief of Russia\u2019s main spacecraft manufacturer issued a dire warning this week, saying that his corporation has reached a \u201ccritical\u201d condition and cannot continue in its present state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is critical: multi-million dollar debts, interest on loans that \u2018eat up\u2019 the budget, many processes that are ineffective, and a significant part of the team has lost motivation and a sense of shared responsibility,\u201d said Igor Maltsev, chief of RSC Energia, which is located near Moscow.<\/p>\n
Maltsev\u2019s remarks were first published by Gazeta.ru, one of the largest Russian news websites. Later, they were reposted on the \u201cForgive us Yura,\u201d Telegram channel, the name of which references cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and primarily has content that focuses on critiques of Russia\u2019s space program. Multiple sources confirmed that the statement is legitimate.<\/p>\n
The largest company within Russia\u2019s vast, state-operated space enterprise, Energia is named after the legendary Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev. It is also located in the industrial city of Korolev, where an artillery plant was rebuilt after World War II to produce rockets and spacecraft for the space age. Today, Energia manufactures the Soyuz crew spacecraft, the Progress cargo vehicle, and the modules for Russia\u2019s next-generation space station.<\/p>\n
In his message to the corporation\u2019s thousands of employees, Maltsev said Energia is having difficulty paying wages and delivering the spacecraft and other products it is contracted to build.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stop lying to ourselves and others about the state of affairs, convincing ourselves and others that everything is fine with us,\u201d he said. \u201cThe time demands decisive action from us\u2014not to sit, but to fight for the enterprise. I suggest that everyone answer the question honestly: are you ready to work for the result and make a real contribution?\u201d<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
Maltsev, who was appointed director general of Energia just three months ago, closed his dark missive by suggesting it will take a miracle to save the historic space corporation.<\/p>\n
This is an extraordinary statement coming from a senior leader within Russia\u2019s space industry. Although it is widely understood that Russia\u2019s space program is in decline, the most common tactic among Russian officials is to bluster about past greatness and talk about all the new programs that are under development.<\/p>\n
In reality, the Russian space program is chronically underfunded, and the war against Ukraine has only accelerated the depletion of talent and resources. Russia cannot afford new spacecraft and rockets when it needs munitions and men for the front lines.<\/p>\n
Maltsev\u2019s comments come as the business climate in Russia appears to be growing more desperate. The prime rate at which the Central Bank is lending money has now risen to 18 percent, and the rates for business loans are higher as capital becomes tighter in the country\u2019s wartime economy.<\/p>\n
What all this means for Russia\u2019s space industry and its participation on the International Space Station is not clear. Recently, the country scaled back the number of cargo and crew missions to the space station, from four flights every two years to three, as a cost-saving measure. However, Dmitry Bakanov, the relatively new leader of Russia\u2019s overarching space corporation, Roscosmos, also recently said the country would like to work with NASA on the space station through 2030.<\/p>\n
NASA and Roscosmos swap astronauts such that one Russian cosmonaut flies on each Crew Dragon mission to the space station, and one NASA astronaut flies on Soyuz flights. Russia provides propulsion services to the station, which were until recently considered essential to flying the orbiting laboratory for the remainder of its lifetime. However, a Dragon spacecraft presently docked to the space station is expected to perform a demonstration of its capabilities to boost the space station should the need arise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The chief of Russia\u2019s main spacecraft manufacturer issued a dire warning this week, saying that his corporation has reached a \u201ccritical\u201d condition and cannot continue in its present state. \u201cThe situation is critical: multi-million dollar debts, interest on loans that \u2018eat up\u2019 the budget, many processes that are ineffective, and a significant part of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2109,234,352,1302,21],"class_list":["post-44133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-energia","tag-roscosmos","tag-russia","tag-soyuz","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}