Roscosmos will create a single operator of commercial launches to compete with SpaceX

The Roscosmos State Corporation will form a new commercial structure - a single operator of commercial launches , which will coordinate the marketing activities of Russian manufacturers of rocket technology on the global launch services market. So it will be easier to compete with the American company SpaceX, which already now offers the cost of launches below Russian and entices customers.

“Coordination of the marketing activities of Russian manufacturers in the global launch services market seems logical, especially in those years when the market is changing and new ambitious players appear,” said Igor Burenkov, the official representative of the state corporation.

“The coordinated actions will allow us to more accurately build relationships with the main customers of services, to pursue a more flexible marketing policy based on a differentiated approach to customers,” added Burenkov.
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During the last decades, Russian companies have been working on the world market independently.

• Roskosmos together with ESA , Soyuz-ST-B launch vehicles - through the Russian-French joint venture company Starsem, launches from the Kourou cosmodrome in French Guiana.
  
  
• Khrunichev Center , Proton launch vehicles - through a subsidiary of International Launch Services (ILS).
  
  
• RSC Energia , Zenit launch vehicles - through a subsidiary of Energia Overseas Limited (EOL). Launches from a towed offshore platform under the Sea Launch project.
  
  
  Launch of Zenit-3SL launch vehicle from the launch platform Odyssey

For the marketing of conversion media "Rokot" company works Eurockot. There are a few small private companies that are not directly controlled by the manufacturers of rocket technology. For example, “International Space Services” (MKU), half owned by UMMC Iskander Makhmudov, sells services for the launch of “Zenith” from Baikonur. And Kosmotras, owned by Sergey Nedoroslev, adapts the R-36M ICBM to launch satellites.

As Izvestia reminds , the idea to form a single structure along the lines of Rosoboronexport, which sells Russian weapons throughout the world, was expressed by Vladimir Popovkin, a former director of the Federal Space Agency, in 2011.

Only five years later, it was possible to subordinate the listed enterprises to Roskosmos sufficiently to prepare the reform.

According to experts, this can reduce the cost of launches: “The transparency of the schemes will increase, the number of intermediaries will decrease, the efficiency of management personnel will increase,” said Ivan Moiseev, scientific director of the Space Policy Institute.

How the new system will be built will become clear later.