MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th November, 2020) The volume of funding for scientific research in the field of space in Russia through 2025 will be just 3 billion rubles ($40 million) compared to the 12-15 billion rubles ($158-197 million) that the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) hoped for, Alexander Sergeev, the head the academy, said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Russian lower house's Committee on education and Science, Sergeev recalled that the budget of the Federal space program for 2016-2025 had been previously cut, including research programs.
"The funding of space science fell to 2.9 billion rubles from 15 billion rubles," Sergeev said.
According to him, Russia will not be competitive in space exploration under such conditions.
"Space science has always been an icon of the country ... It is not just scientific technologies, but the prestige of the country in some sense," Sergeev stressed.
He noted that in 2020, the funding of scientific space research in Russia turned out to be 60 times less than the funding of similar research works at NASA.
The unfavorable situation in Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos has been evolving for years as problems with new contracts were arising and debts of space industry enterprises were increasing. In 2018, the Russian leadership decided to appoint former Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin as the head of the corporation. The new team approached the challenges in a systematic way by introducing strict financial control and firing some of the top employees.
In 2018, Roscosmos managed to reduce its debt burden and to expand the Russian orbit group. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said in January 2019 that the crisis in Roscosmos had been overcome and the situation was improving.
