The General Director of “Rosatom” Dmitry Rogozin engaged Twitter users in the discussion concerning the financing of the American and Russian missile programmes space applications.
“Americans spend several times more on the creation of modern rocket and space technology. If the development of "Angara" [Center Khrunichev] in time financed at least a quarter of the sum of the costs of establishing Falcon [SpaceX], we would come the media,” wrote the official.
One Twitter user called on Rogozin to pay attention to the Samara space-Rocket center (RCC) “Progress”, which produces rockets family “Soyuz-2” and working on promising “Soyuz-5” — the Russian answer to the American Falcon 9.
Earlier in April, Rogozin explained the reluctance of the Corporation to cooperate with SpaceX the fact that the latter supports the Pentagon. Commenting on the statement by the official, a member-correspondent of the Russian Academy of cosmonautics named after Tsiolkovsky Andrew, son of Jonas reminded that “Roscosmos” sells in the USA rocket engines used to launch Pentagon.
In the same month, RIA Novosti, referring to available to the Agency the records of the Roskosmos, announced that the Corporation wanted 2.5 times to increase financing of development work “Cupid”, in which the Vostochny space launch centre should be developed a complex of a heavy class rocket Angara family.
Part of a Corporation, the Khrunichev Centre on the development of disposable rockets of family “Angara” for more than a quarter of a century spent more than three billion dollars, although at the same time carriers of this family (in the light and heavy variants) flew only twice. Currently Khrunichev Center is the most unprofitable enterprise of the Corporation, the debts of which exceed 80 billion rubles, and Rogozin urges Russian space industry to find a use for the “Angara”, which has repeatedly called hopeless.
Currently, RCC “Progress” is considered the most sustainable enterprise “Roscosmos”. Most Russian launches are conducted on the media family “Soyuz-2”, produced Samara enterprise. It is due to carriers produced “Progress”, the Corporation is trying to compete with the SpaceX rockets. While the Moscow Khrunichev Centre, which exists on state subsidies and issuing a failure “proton-M” rocket family “Angara”, such a task is not assigned.
According to open sources, the development and first launch of a reusable Falcon 9 SpaceX from the American left about ten years and not more than two billion dollars.
