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Rogozin removed as Roscosmos’ head

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation which controls the country’s entire aerospace industry, was fired yesterday and replaced by another former deputy prime minister, Yuri Borisov.

Don’t think Rogozin is out of favor with Putin however. Instead, it appears Putin wants his bull-headedness for running one of the regions Russia has conquered in the eastern Ukraine.

Following its tumultuous tenure as the head of Roskosmos, Rogozin was expected to move to the presidential administration and, possibly, lead it or “curate” the Russian occupation of the Eastern Ukraine, the independent Meduza publication reported.

I wonder if Rogozin’s removal is connected in any way with the ongoing negotiations between NASA and Russia’s foreign ministry for the barter agreement to allow the two to fly each other’s astronauts on each other’s capsules.

That agreement has been in negotiations and reviews for months by the two agencies as well as the U.S. State Department and Russian Foreign Ministry. NASA has long advocated for the agreement to enable what it calls “mixed crews” or “integrated crews” on spacecraft. That would ensure at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut would be on the station should either Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles be unavailable for an extended period.

Rogozin’s bellicose manner has I think made those negotiations difficult. Putin might have decided, especially with the break up of its space partnership with Europe, to tone things down. Moreover, he might have realized that Rogozin’s contentious manner might be better put trying to take control of occupied Ukrainian territory.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • Jeff Wright

    It’s about bloody time.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Let us all hope Rogozin produces the same sterling results in Ukraine that he has produced as head of Roscosmos.

  • GaryMike

    I’m guessing there is more money for Rogozin to make from bilking Ukraine than continuing to bilk Russian space.

    Russian space is tapped out.

  • Greg Jones

    The Alexei Navalny YouTube channel published the YouTube vid “Putin. Miller. Gazprom”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSbHR1Z_mZ8

    last month. In this vid, everyone speaks in Russian, but it has great English language subtitles. It describes the corruption in / with the Russian government natural gas company Gazprom. Towards the end, the details become a little overwhelming, but we clearly get the idea: the big giant Russian enterprise Gazprom operates as a big giant corruption piggybank machine for highest-level Russian oligarchs / nomenklatura / etc. Somehow, I believe that Roscosmos works the same way overall, and maybe Rogozin upset certain Russian power centers. Soon enough, maybe the Navalny channel will drop a vid all about Roscosmos . . .

  • Greg Jones: Under Rogozin’s watch those power brokers lost the entire international commercial launch market, with Arianespace/OneWeb leaving because Rogozin confiscated 36 satellites. That income was considerable. I bet a lot of bigwigs are pissed about this in Russia.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Putin could be setting up Rogozin to take the fall when Ukraine is lost. He needs a fall guy. Why else put someone with a questionable track record in charge.

  • Col Beausabre

    I’m going to miss rogozin. His blustering and lies were so amusing

  • LocalFulff

    Rogozin, who is a politician with a degree in journalism (hence his PR skills!) rather than a technocrat, will get new aassignment by Kreml. His new assignment might be related to him earlier having been Russia’s ambassador to NATO and then Special Representative on negotiations about NATO’s anti-missile defense. He’ll help split NATO.

    The new Roscosmos boss is Yury Borisov who has been the Military-Industrial Commissioner since 2011. The war in Ukraine shows that he has done a darn good job! The shelling has gone on for 20 weeks now at an intensity for which NATO only have ammunition for 2 weeks. He is being replaced because the Russian military industrial complex will now be turned on a war footing with new priorities. He has a degree in mathematics and has been employed by the armed forces for 20 years. I suspect that Roscosmos will be more efficient and militarily oriented henceforth. A reorientation that also fits with the loss of civilian market share to SpaceX.

  • LocalFulff

    @Greg Jones
    Vavalny? Do you mean that fascist who once campaigned as the mayor of Moscow with the slogan: “I will shoot Chechens!” and got 2% of the votes?

  • LocalFulff

    Thinking about this more closely. Russia is expected to pose a peace ultimatum, at least when the entire Donetsk province has been liberated, demanding the independence of the occupied provinces, Ukrainian demilitarization and denazification as in abolishing the racists laws and firing openly nazi government representatives. Else the war will be fought until unconditional surrender and all of Ukraine will become a member of the Russian federation.

    But I think that Russia will also put demands on NATO, repeating and somewhat extending the proposal from before their intervention in Ukraine’s civil war about establishing a security zone. Meaning that no foreign troops or longer range missiles be allowed in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. Rogozin might have a big role there given his background with similar negotiations before he went to Roscosmos.

    The ultimatum will of course not be accepted given the power of the nazis in Ukraine and the blind fury of the sickingly incompetent and carelessly bellicose NATO governments.

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