Where flies Roscosmos

In general, I have long been going to talk about how I am pleased with the changes in Roscosmos, but here: bang Progress , bang bang Proton , engines on the ISS, I dump, tourist Sarah Brightman ... It seems it all fell right away , and from space, and from the hands.

After the "Proton" every expert and "expert" will want to speak. And although I’m more of a second than a first, I’ll try to explain my view of the situation. I am sure that the current series of accidents and failures is a direct result of the reforms that began in 2014. But I imagine their consequences are not in the form, like many others.

The rockets fell every year, but the heads of Roscosmos changed almost as often: Phobos Grunt fell - “they collected it for 10 years, and Popovkin came six months ago.” The Proton collapsed live in the Baikonur sky - “So it was assembled in 2011 when military acceptance was canceled under Perminov” ... and I did not think about space.
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Yes, now every second commentator knows the "obvious" cause of accidents - after all, the former director of Zhiguli began to steer Roscosmos, and that means that the missiles will fly like Zhiguli. Igor Komarov is an economist by education, who has never worked in the space sphere, a protege of someone there from above is just a classic stereotype of an "effective manager" who can reduce costs, but cannot go into space.

But let me, and before Komarov, i.e. five months ago, or at least a year and a half ago, when he was brought into the industry, did the Russian cosmonautics shine with victories? Here, the Americans calculated that over the past six years there were 13 major accidents in the Russian space program, 20 spacecraft were completely lost, 3 satellites were not put there. And these are “adult” satellites, worth tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, not some Kubsat. In the US, launches are one and a half times less frequent, and the accident rate is four times lower. This is just the case, the most obvious example. You can write a whole book about the similarities of the "Dokomarovsky" Roscosmos and the "Dokomarovsky" Zhiguli. (Actually, there is such a book ).

And the representatives of the industry themselves did not hide the problems: low wages, low labor productivity, low labor culture, lack of personnel ...


The source of the chart .

From myself I would add: insane bureaucracy, attempts to live by the production traditions of the Soviet Union with the almost complete breakdown of production ties, lack of will of the management team, their lack of any intelligible understanding of what for they generally deal with space ... Well, corruption, so far without it.

The leadership of the country also understood the problems, but they tried to solve them specifically: they put one general after another. It was as if Saltykov-Shchedrin was not read at school, and they thought, "Uzho the general will make them work!" And the generals turned out to be defective, one had forgotten how to give orders, and the second one only tried to control orders. And the industry is a system, you can’t violate it manually.

And, finally, it dawned on the tops: “Let’s put the manager, they have been taught to do this. Who have we got any sensible here?”



I will not hide, I like Komarov both as a person and as a leader. Because he is a provincial, like me. Because it is alive: he stumbles in a conversation, genuinely surprised, genuinely smiles, genuinely worried, knows how to say "I don't know", if he really doesn't know. He tries not to make promises that cannot be fulfilled, even if journalists openly provoke it:
“And you promise,” they insist.
“And I will not,” he shatters the feather sharks, already prepared to give us another “Roskosmos promised the Moon on a platter by 2025”.

In his eyes, read the desire to do, and do. He is well aware that his further career depends on what he does with our cosmos: a mess or a palace of pioneers. The generals from Roscosmos went into oblivion or in intensive care. I am sure Komarov does not want to go there.

And: Mosquitoes, sorry, not pissing! So, yes. From French, this translates as: ready to make important responsible decisions, the need for which I am sure, even if I understand that they will be unpopular . And the team itself is trying to pick the same.

But these are all emotions. Let's look at the real things that the new leadership of Roscosmos managed to do.

At first, many expressed concern about whether a person without an experience in the rocket and space industry, an economist, would quickly get used to and effectively manage the country's space program. I think he understood that very well too. In such a situation, a stupid leader, who has seized upon the government, will say, “Roll off, I’m in charge here.” The smart one will gather around him a team of specialists who will compensate for his gaps in knowledge. And Komarov gathered the Scientific and Technical Council of Roskosmos, which was headed by Yuri Koptev - the former head of Roskosmos "before the general's period", who was able to save the industry in the 90s, when the situation is nothing but an asshole. Commercial launches of the Proton, the contract for the RD-180 with the Americans, the programs of the World-Space Shuttle, the ISS ... - in the lack of money of the 90s and early 2000s, these contracts saved the entire space industry from collapse, and today this is pride of the national cosmonautics, and this is largely the merit of Koptev. Yes, "Mir", too, he flooded, but in those conditions it was a forced sacrifice.

The NTS also includes heads of the largest enterprises in the industry. In fact, Komarov resurrected the Council of Chief, which was once created and headed by Korolev. True, the current Council is an advisory body, but as long as the head listens to the decisions of the Council, they perfectly complement each other.

After four months, you can already look at their actions, decisions and results.

The first decision for which, humanly, you want to shake Komarov’s hand is the confirmation of the operation of the ISS at least until the year 2024. A few years ago, Russia and NASA agreed to work at the station until 2020. NASA proposed to extend for another 4 years, and Roskosmos thought for a whole year. Acceleration of thought processes helped only head transplantation.

This decision is important to the space program of both countries. For the USA, this is important from the point of view of the development of a manned program in collaboration with private companies. The first ships from Boeing and SpaceX should fly by 2018, and it would be excessively wasteful to abandon them in two years. And so will fly at least six years. By the time they still come up with some work. For Russia, the abandonment of the ISS in 2020 would mean either the abandonment of the permanent presence of Russians in space, or the emergency pace of creating its own station, with a fatal cutoff of funding for all other programs. Fortunately for everyone, including Canada, Europe and Japan, we fly together until 2024, or even longer.

The second fundamental decision of the new leadership of Roskosmos is the rejection of the super-heavy rocket. Of course, many supporters of space expansion would like the resurrection of "Energy" or "Volcano", manned missions to the Moon or even Mars. But if you look at the world objectively, then Russia does not need a super-heavy rocket. Spending a third of the Roscosmos budget for fifteen years, for the sake of three days on the surface of the moon, 60 years after the Americans, there is no pride in this and no sense. And after the landing, no payload can be found for such missiles. NASA is engaged in its SLS, but they have a problem with the load, i.e. with her absence. Now, apart from a couple of launches of the Orion spacecraft, only launching a research probe to Europe is considered, but this is not enough. According to rumors, NASA even offered Roscosmos to cooperate on the SLS project.



Roscosmos decided to replace the hypothetical super-heavyweight with the modified Angaroy-A5B . As planned, if we decide to fly to the Moon, we can solve the problem in several launches. The flight can be organized by two launches of A5B, and landing - four. Orientation to "Angara" is another fundamental decision of the renewed Roskosmos. The modular rocket system then begins to bring benefits and savings when it flies frequently. Now the Angara-5 is twice as expensive as the Proton, but the continuous production of universal modules should reduce the price by one and a half to two times. To do this, the "five" should fly at least 10 times a year.



So far, no one refuses Proton, but the Russian-Ukrainian Dnipro and Zenit are practically closed. A few more launches under preliminary agreements, and then similar tasks will be transferred to the Angara "one" and, probably, the "three". At least so in the idea. Zenith is a beautiful rocket, one of the best in the world, and its untimely death will be a tragedy. But the purely pragmatic interests of Roskosmos dictate such a tough, but inevitable decision in the current situation.

Another ambiguous, but a significant event was the news of the rejection of manned launches from the East. The obvious reason for this decision is a reduction in the construction of a new cosmodrome, which is important in the context of the early completion of the first stage by the end of 2015. Interesting consequences follow from this failure: it means Russia continues to fly to the ISS, and does not think about its high-latitude station from where it was supposed to start from Vostochny . Launches from Baikonur continue, no matter how much Kazakh environmentalists would like.



The only irrational decision of the new head of Roscosmos can be considered the promise made to Samizenetekom to launch the first rocket from the Orient before the New Year. Objectively, such a hasty launch is not needed by anyone at all.

But in general, looking at the work of Roscosmos in recent months, I have a feeling that the building on the street. Shchepkina in Moscow, where the Roskosmos leadership is located, began to irradiate with cosmic rays, from which the inhabitants began to work on their heads, and they began to produce hormones of courage. While this installation is working, I am not worried about the future of the national cosmonautics. Let us not fly to the Moon and Mars in the coming decades, but at least the industry will not collapse, it will work and develop.

This should complete the ode of praise to the New Roskosmos, but then the ballons fell from the sky and poured heptyl. And we return to the beginning: how with such a competent, with my words, leadership, is it possible that such a sad work of the industry?

And the factories are now going about the same thing that was on AvtoVAZ, in the first years of the coming of Komarov. There is a change of leadership, reductions are underway, inefficient areas are being closed, projects are being transferred from department to department and from plant to plant. At Khrunichev, where Protons are assembled, rumors have long been circulating that the plant will be shut down altogether, production will be brought to Omsk, and the territory will be handed over for elite construction - Moscow is the same. Coming mergers and acquisitions - these are the consequences of the consolidation of ORKK. And if earlier three plants produced three types, for example, star sensors, now we can expect that the sensor will be left alone, and specialists who are out of work will be offered to move (at best), or just go outside. In conditions of such career prospects, the motivation and work culture does not increase at all. And if the locksmith didn’t even intentionally brush a handful of metal filings into the fuel line, he wouldn’t get them on purpose — not the back, if tomorrow you have to go to work as a loader on the market, now it’s better to take care of yourself.

Probably, the leadership did not expect such a result of its reforms. Here AvtoVAZ experience played a cruel joke. It seems to be clear that production efficiency cannot be raised by other operational means. But if a defective car can always be replaced or repaired under warranty, or even withdraw a batch, then this will no longer work with a rocket. Here you can do either well or in any way.

I do not know how Komarov suggests to rake the current mess, but we must understand that this is a forced way to the palace of pioneers. I would suggest that an additional independent level of quality control be introduced at the plants - an analogue of military acceptance or double quality control. Would reduce to the maximum the number of starts for the next year. I would provide all willing employees with advanced training courses, which at a minimum would give the opportunity to save a place, and at the maximum would contribute to career growth. And business leaders would simply be obliged to explain, explain, explain to the team the motivation in making certain strategic decisions in the life of the enterprise. And at least once a month to hold personal meetings with employees. So that not one locksmith would have a feeling of uncertainty in his future. Yes, but I would also prohibit in the next two years to carry out repairs in the administrative part of enterprises, and buy new cars of the executive class.

However, I am not an "effective manager", so we can only see what the professionals will do and hope that my expectations will be met, and not commentators who talk about Lada.