RuSpace: 2016
January
18/1: Russian budget cuts
A Russian space program update – but no good news.
“Roscosmos 10-Year Budget Cut for Third Time,” 1/12; “Russia to Rewrite Space Program As Economic Crisis Bites,” 29/12, Moscow Times. The Russian economic crisis (a decline in oil revenue, Western sanctions due to Ukraine conflict) has affected Roscosmos, with its budget being cut for the third time.
Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos will receive just 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion) in government funding over the next ten years, less than half of estimated figures cited by space officials earlier this year, a Roscosmos statement said on Monday evening.
The space agency was planning on receiving around 3.4 trillion rubles as part of the Federal Space Program 2016-2025 (FSP), a decade-long planning document that lays out Russia’s goals in space and allocates funding for them.
From a NASASpaceflight.com thread:
It is possible that Russian economy would not rebound at all. Russian companies’ share prices mostly did not recover from 2008 crisis, unlike Western ones.
Unlike worldwide 2008 crisis which did end, current crisis in Russian economy has no end in sight: sanctions are likely to remain until Putin retreats from Crimea which he won’t do; Russian companies have ~700bn of foreign debt which they can’t refinance (no one is willing to lend them money b/c of the sanctions); because of interest rate hike businesses are closing or downsizing (no, it’s not wishful thinking, I see numerous reports about this in Russian web); capital flight grew x2 in 2014; emigration of young educated people has increased too.
“Blow for new cosmodrome as officials say first manned launch is still a decade away,” Siberian Times, 25/8.
Russian space officials say they remain on target for the first unmanned launch from Vostochnyiin December this year. But plans for manned launches to commence in 2018 have been shelved, which means Russia will depend on Baikonur in Kazakhstan for another ten years.
Also (via NASAWatch) a director was caught embezzling Cosmodrome funds. “Russian Space Follies” in another post mentions Russian Moon base plans, now on hold.
President Vladimir Putin officially dissolved Roskosmos on 28 December (Decree No. 666), to be replaced by a state-run agency, Roscosmos State Corporation, merged with the United Rocket and Space Corporation.
So the future for Russian spaceflight looks very constrained for the time being.