Russia further centralizes and consolidates its shrinking space sector

Roscosmos: a paper tiger
Russia’s state-run TASS press agency today announced that the operations of much of its space sector has now been moved to a newly completed centralized facility on the west side of Moscow.
Over 30 enterprises of Russia’s rocket and space industry, based in Moscow, will move their production sites to the newly created National Space Center, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said. “We now have a single platform, where 35 enterprises will be concentrated in one area,” Bakanov said in the National Space Center, visited by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
The National Space Center opened in Moscow on Saturday. A complex of building with the total area of 276,000 square meters, is located in the West of Moscow. It’s a joint project of the Moscow Government and Roscosmos.
Sounds neat, eh? In fact, this illustrates how Russia’s space sector is declining. First, Putin in the 2000s centralized the entire industry into a single corporation, Roscosmos, run by the government. That Soviet-style top-down structure eliminated competition and acted to block new companies from forming.
Second, when Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022 Roscosmos lost billions in revenue when its international customer base cancelled all their contracts and boycotted the country.
Consolidating all these “companies”, which are simply divisions of Roscosmos, into this one facility might save money, but it prevents independent action and competition. It also indicates Russia’s lack of cash.
Most importantly, this move presages the eventually shutdown of many of Russia’s space operations when ISS is retired. Russia has said it is building a new station, but its ability to launch anything new has been abysmal in the 21st century. Routinely it announces new projects which never fly. There is no reason to expect its proposed space station to be anything different.
Roscosmos: a paper tiger
Russia’s state-run TASS press agency today announced that the operations of much of its space sector has now been moved to a newly completed centralized facility on the west side of Moscow.
Over 30 enterprises of Russia’s rocket and space industry, based in Moscow, will move their production sites to the newly created National Space Center, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said. “We now have a single platform, where 35 enterprises will be concentrated in one area,” Bakanov said in the National Space Center, visited by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
The National Space Center opened in Moscow on Saturday. A complex of building with the total area of 276,000 square meters, is located in the West of Moscow. It’s a joint project of the Moscow Government and Roscosmos.
Sounds neat, eh? In fact, this illustrates how Russia’s space sector is declining. First, Putin in the 2000s centralized the entire industry into a single corporation, Roscosmos, run by the government. That Soviet-style top-down structure eliminated competition and acted to block new companies from forming.
Second, when Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022 Roscosmos lost billions in revenue when its international customer base cancelled all their contracts and boycotted the country.
Consolidating all these “companies”, which are simply divisions of Roscosmos, into this one facility might save money, but it prevents independent action and competition. It also indicates Russia’s lack of cash.
Most importantly, this move presages the eventually shutdown of many of Russia’s space operations when ISS is retired. Russia has said it is building a new station, but its ability to launch anything new has been abysmal in the 21st century. Routinely it announces new projects which never fly. There is no reason to expect its proposed space station to be anything different.