The State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos (), is a state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research.
Roscosmos inherited the bulk of the vast Soviet space program following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Established in 1992 as the Russian Space Agency, its modern form resulted from a 2015 merge with the United Rocket and Space Corporation, re-nationalizing the space industry of Russia. Roscosmos is headquartered at the National Space Centre in Moscow; Mission Control Center and Star City are located in Moscow Oblast. Its cosmodromes, jointly operated with the Russian Space Forces, comprise Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the world's first and largest spaceport, Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk, and Vostochny in Amur. Its director since February 2025 is Dmitry Bakanov.
Roscosmos utilizes four rockets: the heavy-lift Proton-M and Angara A5, medium-lift Soyuz-2 variants, and small-lift Angara-1.2. Roscosmos constructed seven modules of the Russian Orbital Segment on the International Space Station (ISS), founding the station with Zarya in 1998. It inherited the Soyuz program, the most flown crewed spacecraft in history. Its derivations, most recently Soyuz MS and Progress MS, service the ISS. Roscosmos extended operations aboard Mir, the first modular space station, ten years beyond its design life; its last crewed mission departed in 2000. The Russian Orbital Station is planned to be constructed from the ISS's Nauka module alongside the ISS deorbit from 2028. Roscosmos is developing the medium-lift Soyuz-5 and partially reusable methalox Soyuz-7.
The Luna-Glob program aims to succeed Soviet missions to the Moon. The Luna 25 lander failed in 2023, future plans include an orbiter, polar landers, and a sample return. Mars missions Mars 96 and Fobos-Grunt failed, while its joint mission with the European Space Agency (ESA), Trace Gas Orbiter, entered orbit in 2016; its Venera-17 orbiter/lander Venus mission launch was postponed beyond 2034. Roscosmos plans crewed Moon missions, developing the Orel spacecraft, Yenisei super heavy-lift rocket, and planning the International Lunar Research Station, with the Chinese space program and 11 other countries.
Reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine isolated the agency internationally: Roscosmos ended the Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre program with ESA, and its supply of NK-33 and RD-181 engines to the US Orbital Sciences Antares rockets; ESA suspended cooperation on the ExoMars program.
Name Roscosmos began as the Russian Space Agency,, Rossiyskoye kosmicheskoye agentstvo, or RKA (). established 1992 and restructured in 1999 and 2004 as the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rossiyskoye aviatsionno-kosmicheskoye agentstvo, commonly known as (), established on 25 May 1999. and the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), (Роскосмос), Federalnoye kosmicheskoye agentstvo (Roskosmos). respectively. In 2015, the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) was merged with the United Rocket and Space Corporation, a government corporation, to re-nationalize the space industry of Russia, leading to Roscosmos in its current form.
History
The Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies. Instead, its organizational architecture was multi-centered; it was the design bureaus and the council of designers that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central agency by the Russian Federation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union was therefore a new development. The Russian Space Agency was formed on 25 February 1992, by a decree of President Yeltsin. Yuri Koptev, who had previously worked with designing Mars landers at NPO Lavochkin, became the agency's first director.
In the early years, the agency suffered from lack of authority as the powerful design bureaus fought to protect their own spheres of operation and to survive. For example, the decision to keep Mir in operation beyond 1999 was not made by the agency, but by the private shareholder board of the Energia design bureau. Another example is that the decision to develop the new Angara rocket was rather a function of Khrunichev's ability to attract resources than a conscious long-term decision by the agency.
Crisis years The 1990s saw serious financial problems due to the decreased cash flow, which encouraged the space agency to improvise and seek other ways to keep space programs running. This resulted in the agency's leading role in commercial satellite launches and space tourism. Scientific missions, such as interplanetary probes or astronomy missions during these years played a very small role, and although the agency had connections with the Russian aerospace forces, its budget was not part of Russia's defense budget; nevertheless, the agency managed to operate the Mir space station well past its planned lifespan, contributed to the International Space Station, and continued to fly Soyuz and Progress missions.
In 1994, Roscosmos renewed the lease on its Baikonur cosmodrome with the government of Kazakhstan.
2000: Start of ISS cooperation On 31 October 2000, a Soyuz spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 10:53 a.m. Kazakhstan time. On board were Expedition One Commander William M. (Bill) Shepherd of NASA and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos. The trio arrived at the International Space Station on 2 November, marking the start of an uninterrupted human presence on the orbiting laboratory.
2004–2006: Improved situation In March 2004, the agency's director Yuri Koptev was replaced by Anatoly Perminov, who had previously served as the first commander of the Space Forces.
The Russian economy boomed throughout 2005 from high prices for exports, such as oil and gas, the outlook for future funding in 2006 appeared more favorable. This resulted in the Russian Duma approving a budget of 305 billion rubles (about US$11 billion) for the Space Agency from January 2006 until 2015, with overall space expenditures in Russia total about 425 billion rubles for the same time period. The budget for 2006 was as high as 25 billion rubles (about US$900 million), which is a 33% increase from the 2005 budget. Under the current 10-year budget approved, the budget of the Space Agency shall increase 5–10% per year, providing the space agency with a constant influx of money. In addition to the budget, Roscosmos plans to have over 130 billion rubles flowing into its budget by other means, such as industry investments and commercial space launches. It is around the time US-based The Planetary Society entered a partnership with Roscosmos. New science missions: Koronas Foton (launched in January 2009, lost in April 2010), Spektr R (RadioAstron, launched in July 2011, retired in May 2019), Intergelizond (2011?), Spektr RG (Roentgen Gamma, launched 2019, one of two telescopes operational), Spektr UV (Ultra Violet, planned 2030), Spektr M (planned 2030), Celsta (2018?) and Terion (2018?) Resumption of Bion missions with Bion-M (2013) New weather satellites Elektro L (launched in January 2011) and Elektro P (2015)
2006–2012
The federal space budget for the year 2009 was left unchanged despite the global economic crisis, standing at about 82 billion rubles ($2.4 billion). In 2011, the government spent 115 billion rubles ($3.8 bln) in the national space programs.
The proposed project core budget for 2013 to be around 128.3 billion rubles. The budget for the whole space program is 169.8 billion rubles. ($5.6 bln). By 2015, the amount of the budget can be increased to 199.2 billion rubles.
Priorities of the Russian space program include the new Angara rocket family and development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft. The GLONASS global navigation satellite system has for many years been one of the top priorities and has been given its own budget line in the federal space budget. In 2007, GLONASS received 9.9 billion rubles ($360 million), and under the terms of a directive signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2008, an additional $2.6 billion will be allocated for its development.
Space station funding issues Due to International Space Station involvements, up to 50% of Russia's space budget is spent on the crewed space program . Some observers have pointed out that this has a detrimental effect on other aspects of space exploration, and that the other space powers spend much lesser proportions of their overall budgets on maintaining human presence in orbit.
Despite the considerably improved budget, attention of legislative and executive authorities, positive media coverage and broad support among the population, the Russian space program continues to face several problems. Wages in the space industry are low; the average age of employees is high (46 years in 2007), and much of the equipment is obsolete. On the positive side, many companies in the sector have been able to profit from contracts and partnerships with foreign companies; several new systems such as new rocket upper stages have been developed in recent years; investments have been made to production lines, and companies have started to pay more attention to educating a new generation of engineers and technicians.
2011 New director On 29 April 2011, Perminov was replaced with Vladimir Popovkin as the director of Roscosmos. The 65-year-old Perminov was over the legal age for state officials, and had received some criticism after a failed GLONASS launch in December 2010. Popovkin is a former commander of the Russian Space Forces and First Deputy Defense Minister of Russia. Also in 2011, the Fobos-Grunt Mars mission was lost in low Earth orbit and crashed back to earth in 2012.
2013–2016: Reorganization of the Russian space sector
As a result of a series of reliability problems, and proximate to the failure of a July 2013 Proton M launch, a major reorganization of the Russian space industry was undertaken. The United Rocket and Space Corporation was formed as a joint-stock corporation by the government in August 2013 to consolidate the Russian space sector. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said "the failure-prone space sector is so troubled that it needs state supervision to overcome its problems." Three days following the Proton M launch failure, the Russian government had announced that "extremely harsh measures" would be taken "and spell the end of the [Russian] space industry as we know it." Information indicated then that the government intended to reorganize in such a way as to "preserve and enhance the Roscosmos space agency."
More detailed plans released in October 2013 called for a re-nationalization of the "troubled space industry", with sweeping reforms including a new "unified command structure and reducing redundant capabilities, acts that could lead to tens of thousands of layoffs." According to Rogozin, the Russian space sector employs about 250,000 people, while the United States needs only 70,000 to achieve similar results. He said: "Russian space productivity is eight times lower than America's, with companies duplicating one another's work and operating at about 40 percent efficiency."
Under the 2013 plan, Roscosmos was to "act as a federal executive body and contracting authority for programs to be implemented by the industry."
Despite Russian state efforts in the reorganization, two more Proton launch vehicle failures occurred in 2014 and 2015.
The government reorganized all of Russia's rocket engine companies into a single entity in June 2015. NPO Energomash, as well as all other engine companies, became a part of United Rocket and Space Corporation.
The decree to actually abolish Roscosmos as a state agency was signed by Vladimir Putin in December 2015, which was replaced by a state-run corporation effective 1 January 2016.