Russian Space Program Looks to Mass Recruitment, Consolidating Engine Manufacturers

Dmitry Medvedev meets with Igor Komarov. (Credit: Government of Russian Federation)

A couple of updates from Russia.

Recruitment Drive: Russia’s crumbling, accident prone space program needs to recruit more than 110,000 university graduates over the next 10 years to work in jobs that currently average 44,500 rubles ($820) per month. But not to worry, the Russian government has pledge to double that average wage to $1,640 per month by 2025.

Oh, good luck with that. I’m sure people will be rushing to take jobs where they can be prosecuted and jailed for screwing up and wonder whether their pay is being stolen by their bosses.

Industry Consolidation Continues:  Russia’s rocket production companies will be consolidated under one roof, Roscosmos head Igor Komarov said on Wednesday.

“Industry reform means the elimination of redundancies and the strengthening of enterprises’ horizontal connections. And today we have taken the first step toward this,” Komarov told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper. The consolidation will include NPO Energomash, which makes the RD-180 rocket engine used in United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.

Any sort of large consolidation is by nature a very messy process that causes a lot of confusion and layoffs while tanking morale until things settle down again. One wonders if this will cause more problems with reliability in the short and even long term.