Now we are doing badly rockets?

In recent years, Vladimir Putin has not been satisfied with public varieties to subordinates. Under the cameras, he endlessly discuss with governors and ministers how to improve the already excellent state of affairs. This is understandable. In a situation where the chief chief has been leading the country for twenty years, any serious failure is his own failure, either organizational or personnel. The more noteworthy was the expanded meeting of the Security Council dedicated to the domestic space industry. In fact, this was a real sprawl: “If we stomp in the spot or constantly talk about our previous achievements, it will be simply impossible to catch up ... The price and time parameters laid out during the preparation of space projects often do not have proper justification. As a result, planned terms are transferred, and budget expenditures increase. How many times it has been in recent years! The domestic system of satellite communication, optical and radar survey of the Earth, the collection of flatudeds are inferior in many respects in many respects in quality, reliability, and the time of operation of the devices in orbit. A considerable part of the equipment, the electronic component base needs to be updated. ”

It is even more interesting that, with the exception of the proposal to reconsider the prices for the construction of the long-suffering “eastern” (cosmodrome, repeatedly robbed by contractors, no one now wants to complete) and reformulate the space state program adopted in 2012 (it was not fulfilled and half) other specific proposals from the main chief did not follow. Everything was reduced to a characteristic recommendation for domestic leaders, to throw more, to throw further and rest so far: “It is important to find effective mechanisms of innovative development of the missile and space industry, to concentrate financial, organizational, personnel, administrative resources in priority areas, to offer new forms of public -private partnerships.”

The problems of our space industry are obvious, and they are not treated with simple administration and even the adoption of ambitious programs. Moreover, they are not treated by the fanfare chatter of Dmitry Rogozin, who until recently steer the entire defense industry, and today unsuccessfully commands Roscosmos, promising ambulance flights to the moon. These problems are primarily that the production culture has been lost. Private companies offer employees much more money than state-owned ones, where top managers write a giant salary for themselves, which in no way depends on the results of the activity. That is why the missiles fall from the fact that the PETEUSHK confuses when installing the plus sensor with a minus. That is why God knows where the studied engineers fill so much fuel that missiles cannot reach the desired orbit.

An even greater problem is the inability of Putin’s appointed managers to ensure industrial cooperation, to build complex production chains. Indeed, hundreds of enterprises should participate in the creation of rockets, and the work of each of them must meet quality standards. The president’s recommendation on the search for new forms of “public-private partnership” are a meaningless concussion. Entrepreneurs run from the state order as the devil from the incense (not by chance, evasion from the execution of state defense orders appears in the list of administrative offenses). Igor Ashurbei, the former head of the Almaz-Antei Corporation, was once exhausted about the effectiveness of such an organization of production, one of the most successful among military industry associations: “I am more reluctant to work in an aggressive environment, when the whole task of the government is to create military-industrial, state capitalism. ... Private business has nothing to do in an aggressive environment, the tasks of which are either absorbing you, or deprive you of orders, or press you in some other ways. ”

What is happening in the Russian space industry looks especially significant against the background of the fact that in the United States, a private business takes more and more tasks in space. Just to the International Space Station, the delivery of goods to which was a Russian monopoly for a long time, the American missile produced by a private company has gone.

All these problems, I repeat, are well -known and did not appear today. Moreover, they are characteristic not only for the “civilian” space industry, but for the entire sphere of high -tech production as part of the state order. It’s just that it is easier to hide the failures in other defense industry segments. And the facts of the fall of missiles, the fact that the satellites lose touch with the control center immediately after the launch, all this becomes immediately known.

But what is curious. No one answers a simple question, how does it turn out that the decline of the civil space that Putin cannot ignore is combined with the fantastic successes of the military space, which the head of state regularly reports to the subordinate people? He just said that the tests of the Sarmat heavy missile, which should replace the famous Satan (who had already served three warranty periods), are close to completion. If so, then this is a fantastic achievement. Indeed, at the end of last year, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces Colonel General Sergei Karakaev reported that only the Sarmatian throwing trials were completed, that is, a test of the ability of the powder charge to push out the missile itself, but its full-sized layout. Usually, after the completion of such tests, it takes years to test the media and engines system, electronics, etc. I need unprecedented effectiveness to reach the final stage of testing the rocket in four months. And this despite the fact that the division into “military” and “civilian” space is very conditional: there and there they use the same elemental and component base. A clear explanation why in one case the rockets do not fly, and in the other, supposedly, they fly, no. It is also not clear what prevents the introduction of military rocket science in the civilian sector.

The situation with a satellite group is raising even more questions. When Putin says that our satellites are inferior to foreign in quality, reliability, time of operation of the devices in orbit, he cannot but mean military satellites. And the latter also include satellites of the missile attack warning system. But it is their data (obtained from low-quality and unreliable devices) that should serve as the basis for turning on the notorious “court day car”, making Putin a decision on a response and resipry nuclear strike. Remember, frightening promises of the chief boss about the inevitable hit of Russians into paradise? In the current state of the rocket industry, this option becomes by no means hypothetical ...

Photo: 1. 03/12/2019. The export of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle with the Soyuz MS-12 ship to the starting complex of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Zuma \ TASS
2. Russia. Moscow. 04/12/2019. Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to the NPO Energomash named after Academician V.P. Glushko "for the development of powerful liquid missile engines for cosmic launch vehicles. Mikhail Metzel/TASS
3. Russia. Moscow. During the assembly of the missile engine at the NPO Energomash NPO Academician V.P. Glushko "for the development of powerful liquid missile engines for space launch vehicles. Mikhail Metzel/TASS