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Putin endorses setting up new Russian state corporation in space industry

President Vladimir Putin supported Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to merge Roscomos and the United Rocket and Space Corporation into a single state-run company

NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 21. /TASS/. A new state corporation in space industry titled Roscosmos will appear in the Russian space industry. It will replace the federal space agency of the same name.

On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin supported Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to merge Roscomos and the United Rocket and Space Corporation into a single state-run company. The current Director-General of the United Rocket and Space Corporation, Igor Komarov, will take the position of its chief.

“I think that’s a correct proposal considering the fat this is more than just a separate enterprise and, in addition, not more than just a separate branch of industry,” Putin said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “The rocket and space industry integrates a huge number of aspects of science and manufacturing.”

"Some time ago, we drafted a proposal for setting up a whole range of companies apart from Roscosmos, including the United Rocket & Space Corporation in the form of a joint-stock company and this corporation is functioning now," Medvedev said at a meeting with the President.

"However the experience we gained recently shows the industry has more serious problems, more complicated, and their solution requires concentration of the government's efforts in a somewhat different manner, the way it was done in the nuclear power industry," Medvedev said.

"That is why the essence of the government's proposals is to set up a new corporation titled Roscosmos," he said.

Medvedev also named the current head of the United Rocket and Space Corporation to the position of CEO of the revamped Roscosmos.

“There’s an idea to appoint the current Director-General of the United Rocket and Space Corporation, Mr. Komarov, to the post of chief of Roscosmos,” Medvedev said. “Simultaneously, Oleg Nikolayevich Ostapenko should be relieved of the duties.”

The latter  will be offered a new executive position in the industry. “Considering his experience, there is an opportunity to entrust him with a job in the space industry, for instance with the position of president in a holding company that will be incorporated with Roscosmos,” Medvedev said.

Putin said on his part that the space industry faced a diversity of tasks both in the field of national defense and in commercial space exploration. “So I think in this case, like in the situation with the nuclear power industry, a set of instruments of this kind would be quite appropriate but we need a specialized law on it,” he said.

The United Rocket and Space Corporation, which is fully owned by the government, was set up by a presidential decree December 2, 2013, and registered March 5, 2014. Its sphere of competences embraced research, development, maintenance, and recycling of military hardware, engine missiles and their components, as well as design, construction, and launching of space probes, manned and unmanned spacecraft, orbital and interplanetary stations.

Igor Komarov was appointed Director-General of the United Rocket and Space Corporation in March 2014. Prior to that he had had the position of a Deputy Director General of Roscosmos (as of October 2013).

Before transition to the space industry, Komarov was CEO of Russia’s largest manufacturer of economy-class small cars, AvtoVAZ.

Russian Federal Space Agency in its incumbent shape was created by President Putin’s decree on March 9, 2004. It was preceded by the Russian Space Agency and the Russian Aerospace Agency.