Ostapenko was appointed head of Roscosmos

Government Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to appoint the former deputy minister of defense as the head of the Roskosmos, Colonel General Oleg Ostapenko, RIA Novosti reports. Medvedev held a working meeting with him.

According to the head of government, now there is a modernization of the space industry management system. At the same time, Roscosmos "must determine the ideology of development, must prepare and accept the regulatory framework for which our space industry is developing, solving personnel and organizational issues."

The prime minister expressed the hope that "a number of problems, which, unfortunately, has recently been observed in the Luxion Lock," with the advent of Ostapenko will be resolved.

Earlier, Roskosmos was headed by Vladimir Popovkin, and about four hours ago his spokeswoman Anna Vedishcheva called information about the upcoming dismissal of Popovkin rumors and said that "the management of the affairs of Roscosmos did not receive any orders on this score"

The fact that Ostapenko can be headed by the Russian Space Agency , and Popovkin is invited to become an adviser to the president on space activities, Izvestia reported on October 5. At the same time, Ostapenko refused the comments, and in the Roscosm, they refuted the information about Popovkin's departure.

Then the Deputy Prime Minister of the government Dmitry Rogozin expressed surprise with information about the replacement of Popovkin with Ostapenko. “You will learn a lot from the newspapers in the morning. Maybe it’s better not to read them at all?” He wrote on Twitter on Saturday. The Deputy Prime Minister supplied his comment “Smiley”.

In August, the newspaper, citing sources, reported that Rogozin at a government meeting offered his candidates for the post of new head of Roscosmos, as well as for the post of head of the state corporation, which is planned to be created as a result of the reorganization of the space agency. Rogozin allegedly suggested that Igor Karavaev, state secretary and deputy minister of industry and trade, as the head of the state corporation-Oleg Bochkarev, deputy chairman of the military-industrial commission under the government.

At the same meeting in the government, according to the newspaper, Popovkin refused to take responsibility for the accident of the Proton-M launch vehicle that happened on July 2. According to the results of the meeting in the government on August 1, Popovkin was reprimanded.