Rogozin Outlines Plans for Consolidating Russia’s Space Industry
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin outlined plans for a sweeping reform of the nation’s troubled space industry to President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The plan involves re-nationalization the industry under a unified command structure and reducing redundant capabilities, acts that could lead to tens of thousands of layoffs.
Speaking to President Vladimir Putin about the plans, Rogozin said a new state corporation will be created to take over manufacturing facilities from the Federal Space Agency, whose prestige has been severely dented in recent years by a string of failed rocket launches.
The proposed United Rocket and Space Corporation will enable the trimming away of redundant departments replicated elsewhere in the space industry, Rogozin told Putin.
A variety of manufacturing facilities in the rocket and space industry are currently bundled in 10 integrated structures and there are also a large number of independent organizations operating outside those structures that operate to their own plans, said Rogozin, who oversees the country’s defense sector.
The new corporation will introduce a unified technical policy and save financial resources by consolidating developers and manufacturers, he said….
The proposed corporation will comprise all rocket and space-manufacturing facilities and design bureaus, except for a number of defense-related firms, Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday.
Under the plan, the Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, will act as a federal executive body and contracting authority for programs to be implemented by the industry, Rogozin said.
The consolidation could lead to mass layoffs. In a previous interview, Rogozin said Russia about 250,000 people in its space sector, 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.
3 responses to “Rogozin Outlines Plans for Consolidating Russia’s Space Industry”
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What exactly are they nationalizing, doesn’t the Russian government already owns 90% (not a real figure) of the industry already?
It’s a good question. They don’t own a majority of Energia, and that’s going to change. I don’t totally understand the structure of the Russian space industry. I’ve been following it for years, and it remains a bit of a mystery to me still.
“Rogozin said Russia about 250,000 people in its space sector, while the United States has about 70,000 people working in the field.” This is no doubt bogus. NASA employs 18k+, and Boeing employs 55k+ in its “Defense, Space & Security” group alone. That’s already more than 70,000 and leaves out many tens of thousands of workers in other companies both large (Lockheed Martin, BAE, Raytheon, etc.) and small.