The presidential administration of President Vladimir Putin has started a large-scale check at the Roscosmos state space agency, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday, citing the agency’s spokesperson Igor Buryonkov.
According to Buryonkov, the inspection has been triggered by multiple issues that have appeared in the Russian space industry over the last two years.
Last month’s delay of a rocket launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome was an ordinary event, according to Buryonkov. However, Putin publicly reprimanded Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin the day after the failed launch, along with the general director of Roscosmos and the head of the company providing the rocket's control systems.
A sequence of incidents struck the Russian space industry last year, including the loss of a Progress resupply ship bound for the International Space Station, the crash of a Proton-M rocket shortly after launch and a breakdown of three Russian satellites constructed for foreign customers.
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