Deputy PM blames ‘drawing tables’ for space mission failures

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin says that employees at Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency, “still work with sketches at their drawing table, intuitively.” According to Rogozin, this is the reason behind the recent series of space mission failures.

“We began reforming the defense complex three years ago. Right now we have 50 integrated structures over there. But [we began reforming] Roscosmos just a year and a half ago. That’s why it is impossible for us to imagine right now making airplanes without digital models of them. But in Roscosmos, they still work with sketches at their drawing table, intuitively. Instead of modeling all the situations mathematically,” said Rogozin.

In late April, Russian unpiloted cargo spacecraft ISS Progress 59 encountered problems after its launch and eventually began an uncontrolled descent from its orbit, burning up as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere on May 8. There has been no official statement on why the accident occurred, and the committee in charge of the investigation has twice put off the publication of their conclusions.

On May 16, the Russian-made launch vehicle Proton was supposed to launch a Mexican satellite MexSat-1, but the satellite was lost due to a failure on the third stage of the launch vehicle.

During a speech before parliament on May 19, Rogozin spoke of “moral degradation” among the chief executives of Roscosmos. Russia’s Accounts Chamber revealed on May 22 that 92 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) have been misallocated by Roscosmos in 2014 alone.