Share Of Up-to-Date Equipment At Russian Space Agency's Companies 13% - Chief

The share of modern equipment at the enterprises which are part of the Russian space agency Roscosmos is no more than 13 percent, but the Russian space industry is capable of resolving its problems, the Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, told Sputnik on Thursday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2018) The share of modern equipment at the enterprises which are part of the Russian space agency Roscosmos is no more than 13 percent, but the Russian space industry is capable of resolving its problems, the Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, told Sputnik on Thursday.

"Production capacities of Roscosmos are far outdated and modern equipment forms no more than 13 percent [of the overall capacities]. But it is only a matter of money. We will change the machines. People are ready and they have a lot of enthusiasm. Roscosmos will surely rise even given this proportion [of outdated equipment]," Rogozin said.

In early November, the Roscosmos chief said that the financial "hole" of the Khrunichev space center, the manufacturer of the Proton and Angara rockets, amounted to 111 billion rubles ($1.

69 billion).

Moreover, the debt of the Energia corporation, which manufactures Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, is 35 billion rubles, according to Rogozin.

However, the official has suggested that the Khrunichev center will reach the break-even point as early as in 2022 while it will begin repaying its debt, penalties and fines in 2023.

Over the past years, the Russian space industry has faced several major launch failures.

In the most recent case in October, a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague malfunctioned minutes after the liftoff, sending their capsule into a steep fall back to Earth. They were not harmed. Roscosmos subsequently said that the accident was caused by a sensor failure.