in the
Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics, Kaluga, Russia. The exhibition includes the models and replicas of the following Russian/Soviet inventions: the first
satellite,
Sputnik 1 (a ball under the ceiling); the first
spacesuits (lower-left corner); the first
human spaceflight module, the
Vostok 3KA (center); the first
Molniya-type satellite (upper right corner); the first
space rover,
Lunokhod 1 (lower right); the first
space station,
Salyut 1 (left); the first
modular space station,
Mir (upper left). The
Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies. Instead, its organizational architecture was multi-centered; it was the design bureaus and the council of designers that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central agency after the reorganization of the
Soviet Union into the Russian Federation was therefore a new development. The Russian Space Agency was formed on 25 February 1992, by a decree of President
Yeltsin.
Yuri Koptev, who had previously worked with designing Mars landers at
NPO Lavochkin, became the agency's first director. In the early years, the agency suffered from lack of
authority as the powerful design bureaus fought to protect their own spheres of operation and to survive. For example, the decision to keep Mir in operation beyond 1999 was not made by the agency, but by the private shareholder board of the Energia design bureau. Another example is that the decision to develop the new
Angara rocket was rather a function of
Khrunichev's ability to attract resources than a conscious long-term decision by the agency.
2004–2006: Improved situation In March 2004, the agency's director
Yuri Koptev was replaced by
Anatoly Perminov, who had previously served as the first commander of the Space Forces. The budget for 2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles (about US$900 million), which is a 33% increase from the 2005 budget. Under the current 10-year budget approved, the budget of the Space Agency shall increase 5–10% per year, providing the space agency with a constant influx of money. In addition to the budget, Roscosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and commercial space launches. It is around the time US-based
The Planetary Society entered a partnership with Roscosmos. • New science missions:
Koronas Foton (launched in January 2009, lost in April 2010),
Spektr R (RadioAstron, launched in July 2011, retired in May 2019),
Intergelizond (2011?),
Spektr RG (Roentgen Gamma, launched 2019, one of two telescopes operational),
Spektr UV (Ultra Violet, planned 2030),
Spektr M (planned 2030),
Celsta (2018?) and
Terion (2018?) • Resumption of
Bion missions with
Bion-M (2013) • New weather satellites
Elektro L (launched in January 2011) and
Elektro P (2015) Priorities of the Russian space program include the new
Angara rocket family and development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft. The
GLONASS global navigation satellite system has for many years been one of the top priorities and has been given its own budget line in the federal space budget. In 2007, GLONASS received 9.9 billion rubles ($360 million), and under the terms of a
directive signed by
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2008, an additional $2.6 billion will be allocated for its development. ; Space station funding issues Due to
International Space Station involvements, up to 50% of Russia's space budget is spent on the crewed space program . Some observers have pointed out that this has a detrimental effect on other aspects of space exploration, and that the other space powers spend much lesser proportions of their overall budgets on maintaining human presence in orbit. Despite the considerably improved budget, attention of legislative and executive authorities, positive media coverage and broad support among the population, the Russian space program continues to face several problems. Wages in the space industry are low; the average age of employees is high (46 years in 2007), Also in 2011, the
Fobos-Grunt Mars mission was lost in low Earth orbit and crashed back to earth in 2012.
2013–2016: Reorganization of the Russian space sector As a result of a series of reliability problems, and proximate to the failure of a July 2013
Proton M launch, a major reorganization of the Russian space industry was undertaken. The
United Rocket and Space Corporation was formed as a
joint-stock corporation by the
government in August 2013 to consolidate the Russian
space sector. Deputy Prime Minister
Dmitry Rogozin said "the failure-prone space sector is so troubled that it needs state supervision to overcome its problems." Three days following the Proton M launch failure, the Russian government had announced that "extremely harsh measures" would be taken "and spell the end of the [Russian] space industry as we know it." Information indicated then that the government intended to reorganize in such a way as to "preserve and enhance the Roscosmos space agency." Under the 2013 plan, Roscosmos was to "act as a federal executive body and contracting authority for programs to be implemented by the industry." The government reorganized all of Russia's
rocket engine companies into a single entity in June 2015.
NPO Energomash, as well as all other engine companies, became a part of
United Rocket and Space Corporation. The decree to actually abolish Roscosmos as a
state agency was signed by
Vladimir Putin in December 2015, which was replaced by a
state-run corporation effective 1 January 2016. In May 2018, Putin selected Rogozin to be the head of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos.
2017–2021 In 2018,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said "it 'is necessary to drastically improve the quality and reliability of space and launch vehicles' ... to preserve Russia's increasingly threatened leadership in space." In November 2018
Alexei Kudrin, head of Russian financial audit agency, named Roscosmos as the public enterprise with "the highest losses" due to "irrational spending" and outright
theft and
corruption, under the leadership of
Igor Komarov who was terminated in May 2018 in favour of Rogozin. In 2020 Roscosmos under Rogozin reneged on its participation in
Lunar Gateway, a
NASA-led project that will see a lunar orbiter spaceport for the moon. It had previously signed an agreement in September 2017 with the Americans. In March 2021, Roscosmos signed a memorandum of cooperative construction of a lunar base called the
International Lunar Research Station with the
China National Space Administration.” In April 2021, Roscosmos announced that it will be departing the ISS program after 2024. In its place, it was announced that a new space station (
Russian Orbital Service Station) will be constructed starting in 2025. In June 2021 Rogozin complained that sanctions imposed in the wake of the
2014 Russian annexation of Crimea were hurting Roscosmos. In September 2021, Roscosmos announced its revenue and net income, losing 25 billion roubles and 1 billion roubles respectively in 2020, due to the reduction of profit from foreign contracts, an increase in show-up pay, stay-at-home days and personnel health expenses due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. According to Roscosmos, these losses would also impact the corporation for the next two years. In October, Roscosmos placed the tests of rocket engines in the engineering bureau of chemical automatics in
Voronezh on hold for one month to deliver 33 tons of oxygen to local medical centers, as part of aid for the
COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2021, the
Government of Russia confirmed determination of the agreement with Roscosmos for development of next-gen space systems, the document been provided for the officials in July 2020.
2022–present Since the
Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Roscosmos launched nine rockets in 2022 and seven in the first half of 2023. In early March 2022, Roscosmos under Rogozin suspended its participation in the ESA's spaceport in
Kourou,
French Guiana in a tit-for-tat move over the sanctions imposed in the wake of the Russian invasion. As well Rogozin said he would suspend delivery of the
RD-181 engine which is used for the
Northrop Grumman Antares-
Cygnus space cargo delivery system. On 2 May 2022, Rogozin announced that Roscosmos would terminate its involvement in the
ISS with 12 months' notice as stipulated in the international contract that governs the satellite. This followed the 3 March 2022 announcement that Roscosmos would cease cooperation on scientific experiments at the Spacelab, and the 25 March 2022 announcement by Rogozin that "cooperation with Europe is now impossible after sanctions over the Ukraine war." Rogozin was removed from his job as CEO in July 2022, At one point in time NASA had bought 71 return trips on
Soyuz for almost $4 billion over six years. The global space-launch services market was valued at $12.4 billion in 2021 and was forecast to reach $38 billion by decade's end. An American academic wrote that in the wake of the Russian invasion, Roscosmos' share of that market was likely to decline in favour of new entrants such as Japan and India, as well as commercial entrants like
SpaceX and
Blue Origin. In June 2023, Roscosmos held a campaign to recruit volunteers for the
Uran Battalion, a militia for the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2023, Borisov announced the need for 150 billion rubles to build the Russian space station in the next three years. At completion in 2032, it will have absorbed 609 billion rubles. In February 2024, at the 2023
AGM, Borisov announced the loss of 180 billion rubles in export revenues, chiefly engine sales and launch services, because of the Western hostility to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos had lost 90% of its launch service contracts since the advent of the war. In late 2025, Roscosmos launched three Iranian satellites into orbit aboard a
Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Vostochny Cosmodrome. Analysts described the mission as part of Russia's ongoing cooperation with non-Western partners. Roscosmos and Russia's space industry are facing significant challenges. The country is on track to conduct its fewest orbital launches since 1961. As of August 15, 2024, only nine launches had occurred, a sharp decline partly attributed to the loss of Western customers following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos has reported financial losses of 180 billion rubles ($2.1 billion) due to canceled contracts. The agency's first deputy director indicated it may not achieve profitability until 2025. From 2025 on Roscosmos headquarters are located in the new
National Space Center in the Moscow district of
Fili. == Current programs ==