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.
ISS News

Roscosmos Plans To Keep ISS Flying With Imaginary Money

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 25, 2019
Filed under ,
Roscosmos Plans To Keep ISS Flying With Imaginary Money

Roscosmos vows to keep ISS on orbit if NASA withdraws from the project, TASS
“The Roscosmos state corporation will preserve the International Space Station (ISS) on the orbit even if the American side withdraws from the project, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin told journalists. “This is Roscosmos’ proposal. We believe that we can keep the station in case the Americans decide to withdraw from this project, through other countries and partners. We have technological and technical capabilities to keep the station on the orbit and fully provide both electric energy and water there,” Rogozin said.”
Russian Rocket Program Sputters in New Race to Space, Bloomberg
“Russia’s market share for rocket technology worldwide fell slightly in 2017, which Roscosmos blamed on sanctions, the weak ruble and increased competition, according to its annual report published on Friday. It singled out SpaceX for allegedly undercutting the market thanks to U.S. government assistance. … The windfall funding from the U.S. hasn’t always been spent wisely. Alexei Kudrin, the head of the country’s Audit Chamber, told Russia’s lower house of parliament in June that he found 760 billion rubles ($11.4 billion) of financial violations in Roscosmos’s books. “Several billion have been spent, basically stolen, that we are currently investigating,” Kudrin said in an interview aired Nov. 25 on state-run Rossiya 24 TV. “Roscosmos is the champion in terms of the scale of such violations.”
Keith’s note: With an ever-decreasing budget for space it will be interesting to watch Russia try and take over the ISS which costs more than its entire annual space budget to operate.

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

4 responses to “Roscosmos Plans To Keep ISS Flying With Imaginary Money”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
    0
    0

    You are assuming they would be paying their personnel the same sakaries as NASA when in truth the salaries in Russia are fraction of those in the U.S. You are assuming they will have hordes of personnel micromanaging everything. They won’t. They will probably just use their existing mission control with a few dozen added for the U.S. modules. They also won’t have their personnel scattered among multiple locations the way NASA does. They also wouldn’t be buying cargo and seats on expensive western launch systems. Instead they will stick with the Soyuz and Progress. And not over analyze everything the way NASA does .My guess, by running it the “Russia Way” and paying Russian salaries it will cost them only a tenth as much as NASA to operate it, maybe even less.

    • Jeff2Space says:
      0
      0

      From the first article linked above:

      “We believe that we can keep the station in case the Americans decide to withdraw from this project, through other countries and partners.”

      The bit about “other countries and partners” would be key. Russia surely can’t “go it alone” with ISS for very long. Look at what happened to Mir. Its life would not have been extended had it not been for the US and the shuttle/Mir program. The shuttle brought up a lot of badly needed equipment and supplies that kept Mir going.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
        0
        0

        That was because the Soviet Union collapsed and they were broke. They are not as bad off now relative to then. But expected they will be selling seats to other countries, just like they are doing to the UAE now.

        https://www.thenational.ae/

        First UAE astronaut to blast off into space in September, Russian media reports

  2. brobof says:
    0
    0

    Keith In a word China…
    The Russians will retain their tenure; original hardware and the word “International.” Interkosmos redux. Just a thought.