This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
Russia

Vostochny Spaceport Has A Few Criminal Issues

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 20, 2018
Filed under
Vostochny Spaceport Has A Few Criminal Issues

Criminal cases opened into $150mln violations at Vostochny spaceport, TASS
“Russia’s investigators have launched more than 140 criminal cases into violations during the construction of the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far East, and the total damage is valued at 10 bln rubles ($152.3 mln), Official Spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office Alexander Kurennoy said. “Since 2014, more than 140 criminal cases have been opened, and the damage was assessed at 10 bln rubles,” Kurennoy said in an interview with the Efir Internet channel of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office. According to the spokesman, 50 individuals have been sentenced, and this year sentences for 27 people were announced. The prosecutors have revealed 17,000 law violations during the construction since 2014. More than 1,000 people have been held accountable, including officials. Among the violations were delayed construction, multibillion embezzlement of state funds and the administration’s negligence.”
Man Driving Diamond-encrusted Mercedes Caught Embezzling Cosmodrome Funds, earlier post (2015)
“Alleged to have embezzled four million roubles, video of arrest shows him driving diamond-encrusted Mercedes. A senior director suspected of embezzling funds from the construction of the new Vostochny cosmodrome has been arrested after going on the run.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

4 responses to “Vostochny Spaceport Has A Few Criminal Issues”

  1. fcrary says:
    0
    0

    Impressive. 17,000 violations since 2014 comes out to nine or ten violations per day. Assuming those are serious violations (and that they aren’t counting things like speeding in a construction zone) it’s a bit surprising the launch complex has actually started operating.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
      0
      0

      The exact state of affairs and indeed the future of the site remains unclear. Only one pad, Site 1S (Soyuz 2.1) is operational and three launches (inc 1 failure) conducted over the past two years. Based on the Wikipedia article there were numerous errors in construction.

      • fcrary says:
        0
        0

        I’m afraid your reminder of the launch statistics is going to make me make an unfair comparison.

        I note that Rocket Lab’s launch facility (Mahia, New Zealand) has a record of two successful launches and one failure. Like Vostochny, their one failure was due to a software problem, not anything to do with hardware or launch preparations. And both sites currently have only one pad in operation.

        I know it’s unfair to compare a Soyuz 2 launch with a Electron launch (payload to orbit differ by almost two orders of magnitude) and Vostochny was designed for additional pads while Mahia was not. But Rocket Labs has gotten to essentially the same point in three rather than eight years, and they definitely didn’t spend $7.5 billion to get there. And I suspect it’s a lot more fun to live on New Zealand’s North Island than in Russia’s Amur Oblast.

      • hikingmike says:
        0
        0

        Interesting the Wikipedia article says eventually the cosmodrome will employ 20,000 – 25,000 people. Also they planned construction of a city of 40,000 people.

        I have seen this place on satellite view several times (excited to see a new space center built, for launching new rockets) and I realize it is in the middle of a remote gigantic forest area, but building a city of 40,000 people from scratch is difficult to wrap my head around. I guess it isn’t much of a jump for former Soviet Union mindset.

        I looked up employment at Kennedy Space Center and it looked like about 13,000 people. Now Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is right there also and there are civilian launches there. CCAFS is about 10,000 more. So maybe that’s comparable. But supposedly Vostochny is planned to be mostly civilian launches so I don’t know if it’s fair to include all those at CCAFS if comparing to Vostochny.

        Also interesting to learn that they ruled out a Pacific coastal site because problems and delays that can be caused by proximity to the ocean. They could have had a population center nearby in Vladivostok though. That might beat building a city for 40,000 from scratch.