Russia may lack the funds to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket
Enlarge / Russia's plans to develop a newer Soyuz rocket may have hit a funding snag. (credit: NASA)
The Russian space program's budget process is not particularly transparent to outsiders, but it does appear likely that Roscosmos will face cuts in the coming years. According to Sputnik, a Russian government-controlled news agency, the Roscosmos state corporation will likely to suffer funding shortages amounting to 150 billion rubles (more than $2 billion) in the next three years, from 2019 to 2021.
The consequences of these cuts could be severe for Russia's much-vaunted launch industry. In particular, the reduced budget could forestall a rocket development project intended to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and a new super-heavy lift booster.
Unnecessary rocketsOne expert observer of the Russian space program, Ivan Moiseev, the scientific leader of the Russian Space Policy Institute, says this is the case. Cuts in the Roscosmos budget will make it impossible to develop the new Soyuz-5 medium-lift booster, the Falcon 9 competitor, as well as imperil further development of a heavy-lift variant of the Russian Angara rocket.
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