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Russian prime minister promises funds for Russian space program

Posted on: Thursday, 13 November 2003, 06:00 CST

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Thursday ordered the Finance Ministry to give 1.5 billion rubles (US$50.2 million) to the Russian space agency to ensure that Russia meets its commitments to the International Space Station, the Interfax news agency reported.

Yuri Koptev, director of Rosaviakosmos, the Russian space agency, said that Kasyanov had given the Finance Ministry three days to sort out a funding shortage that space officials have been complaining about for months.

The Russian space program has become the only link with the multinational orbiting space station since the U.S. shuttle Columbia broke apart while returning to Earth on Feb. 1. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.

NASA immediately grounded its shuttle fleet, leaving Russia's non-reusable Soyuz capsules as the only means for getting crew to and from the station. Russia's unmanned Progress spaceships also provide the only way to ferry supplies to the ISS.

The Russian government promised earlier this year to build the extra ships, but Yuri Semyonov, director of RKK Energiya, the company that builds Russian spacecraft, complained last month that Moscow had failed to deliver the promised funds. He also criticized NASA and the European Space Agency for not helping.

Semyonov said that Energiya was forced to borrow money to build spacecraft this year and had to freeze assembly of the spacecraft for future missions. The Russian space agency has also had to postpone the launch of its next Progress craft until early next year due to a cash shortage.

Koptev told Kasyanov on Thursday that even if the U.S. shuttles do start flying again next fall as expected, they won't immediately take the pressure off Russia. He said that the first shuttle flight will not be connected to the International Space Station, but instead will be focused on testing safety.

Meanwhile, Koptev said that Russia's space priorities next year included launching at least three satellites that monitor the Earth, as well as updating its telecommunications satellites and modernizing the infrastructure for Soyuz rocket launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, Interfax reported.

(mb/ji)

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