Maria Selivanova, Lyudmila Novikova, Krasnoyarsk
The Russian Government plans to initiate a new state-controlled corporation for developing space programmes. The new corporation, to be created in 2009, will comprise federal unitary state enterprises (FGUPs), now part of the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).
Although the decision was initiated by top Roscosmos managers, sources inside the agency said they did not understand the need for the change, and that the state already controlled the cost-effective FGUPs.
However, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes this is not enough, that all Russian citizens must benefit from the use of satellites.
Vladimir Putin told a conference on high-priority space objectives in Zheleznogorsk that Russia annually launched 40% of the world's spacecraft, that it had 100 satellites in orbit, and that their number would continue to increase. However, space projects must not remain a "vision-unto-itself" and must yield a more universal economic effect, Putin said.
From 2009 till 2011, the federal space programme, the federal target programme Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) and the programme for developing Russian space centres in 2006-2015 will receive over 200 billion roubles' ($7.3 billion) worth of budgetary funding.
Roscosmos hopes to completely overhaul operational facilities by late 2015 and to commission a new space centre in the Amur Region.
The Government will go even further. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said all federal target programmes would receive an additional 100 billion roubles ($3.6 billion) in the next three years.
In the spring of 2008, the Economic Development Ministry called the GLONASS investment ineffective and said the programme had to be modified. The Government promised to allocate another 67 billion roubles ($2.4 billion) for that purpose.
Roscosmos director Anatoly Perminov said this would eliminate funding shortages in 2010-2011 and would enable the launch of 10 more spacecraft.
The Government also plans to ensure a more down-to-earth, day-to-day use of space technology. On October 21, Putin ordered the concerned departments to draft a new federal target programme for using space technology potential for Russian regions' socio-economic development.
Satellites will study the earth's surface, conduct prospecting operations, provide navigation support, monitor crops and forests and relay data. Roscosmos estimates that 40.7 billion roubles ($1.5 billion) will be required to create the space products and services market.
Although these statistics are impressive, the GLONASS cluster is still unable to replace the US Global Positioning System (GPS) even on Russian territory. Three more GLONASS satellites will have to be launched before the year is out.
In a bid to solve this technical problem, top Roscosmos executives propose merging all their FGUPs into a new state corporation for further expansion.
An RBC Daily source familiar with the Roscosmos situation said the innovation would hardly benefit the sector, which now has five or six major corporations.
"The current project implementation form has produced good results," the source said.
Another source said the obsolete FGUPs were being converted into other companies. "When Anatoly Perminov was placed in charge of Roscosmos, there were over 20 bankrupt companies. And now only four are bankrupt," another source said.