Russia's upper house of parliament has approved a law that would turn Russia's existing Roscosmos federal space agency into a state-run corporation as part of efforts to reform the country's crisis-prone space sector, news agency TASS reported Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is responsible for the reform effort, said the corporation should begin operating in October. Rogozin added that a series of additional government resolutions must be passed before the company, which will also be called Roscosmos, can begin its work.
The new company essentially merges the responsibilities of the existing Roscosmos space agency with a massive industry-spanning holding company known as the United Rocket and Space Corporation.
In this regard, Roscosmos will not only be responsible for enacting the government's space policy, but manage the Russian space industry, which is undergoing a massive consolidation and reform effort expected to take around a decade to complete.
The decision to liquidate the federal space agency and turn it into a state corporation was announced earlier this year in response to a series of embarrassing rocket launch and satellite failures over the past five years.
According to Rogozin, the new corporate structure should encourage Russia's many space industry enterprises to be more accountable and attract new talent to the field, which is dominated by Soviet-era specialists.
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