Corruption leads to accidents in Russian space program

MOSCOW, May 26 (UPI) -- The Russian space industry is under fire, accused of mishandling $1.8 billion in state funds as important satellites and launches have failed.

Roscosmos, the government space agency, committed 92 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in financial violations in 2014, largely due to corruption, the Russian Accounts Chamber noted. The Moscow-based Khrunichev Space Center, responsible for building heavy satellites and space stations, itself is the target of investigators who accuse personnel of embezzling and mismanaging $182 million in funding in 2014.

Construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia's "eastern spaceport" near the Pacific Ocean, is behind schedule and plans to open this year have moved forward. The program also lost two spacecraft in May; a cargo ship burned in the earth's atmosphere after a communications mixup, and a Proton-M rocket, carrying a Mexican communications satellite, crashed.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin, in a televised interview Sunday, called for consolidation and reform in Russia's space sector, noting outdated thinking and a lack of use of modern methods of engineering.

He also suggested vigorous prosecution of those involved in fraud, saying, "here are figures linked to fraud and theft... they too are extremely disturbing and have assisted in the degradation of the economic situation among a number of space enterprises. And secondly, for all these figures, criminal cases have been opened and arrests are being made."

In an earlier statement, Rogozin said, "With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate."

Russia's economic crisis caused a 35 percent decline, in the next decade, to the Federal Space Agency's budget.