As it became known, the Russian military-industrial industry and Roscosmos may face a serious transformation next summer. This was stated by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government Dmitry Rogozin. He announced that the Government had decided to take on Roscosmos due to the fact that this structure is currently working extremely ineffectively. The percentage of orders fulfilled by Roskosmos on an annualized basis at the moment is no more than one tenth, which, indeed, cannot but worry. It is planned that the Russian space agency will be transformed into a kind of super-corporation, which will become more focused on real cooperation with the Ministry of Defense (including the Ministry of Defense).
At the same time, Rogozin says that the same modernized Roscosmos will face numerous personnel changes. However, one can hardly expect that Vladimir Popovkin will be dismissed. Experts and political analysts believe that after Dmitry Rogozin's words that he personally has no complaints about Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos may become the main new united corporation.
The fact that Vladimir Popovkin will most likely remain in his chair with a changed sign on his office can be treated differently. On the one hand, it cannot be said that under Popovkin there were any cardinal shifts in terms of improving the department. Yes, by and large, there was no deterioration either, because there were failures with spacecraft launches even before the new head of Roskosmos took office. Most likely, Rogozin, who has received the authority to form the structure of new corporations in both the defense industry and the space department, will propose a new composition of managers at the level on which the direct heads of corporations can rely. The whole question is, where can we find such people today? After all, personnel problems not only of an administrative nature, but also of scientific and technical problems in modern Russia, unfortunately, are obvious. The same military-industrial enterprises rely on people whose age has long passed the retirement mark. Yes, undoubtedly, these are professionals of the highest level, but after all, as they say, without an influx of young blood, there is practically no point in talking about industrial modernization.
In addition to the fact that modernization awaits "Roskosmos", it became known that a number of enterprises of the military-industrial complex are waiting for a series of enlargements. On this score, the opinions of experts are also far from united. Some argue that the creation of super-corporations will increase the prestige of work in the military-industrial complex, stimulate production activity and, as a result, increase wages. Others are sure that our country has already gone through all these consolidations, and they will lead (consolidation) to another decrease in the level of competition between enterprises. And if competition decreases, then the products will not always meet modern standards.
And those, and others can be understood. Indeed, if relatively small defense-industrial enterprises are given the opportunity to work alone, then they will not always be able to bring their products to defense markets, which is often observed today. If we try to match all these small firms and put a single leader over them, then such a step can lead to a total absorption of “baby” enterprises by the production “sharks”.
In this regard, Dmitry Rogozin will have to pretty much break his head in terms of how to carry out modernization so that it does not hit the competition, and therefore the quality of the products, on the one hand, and created a truly effective production field with uniform principles of productive work - on the other. Such a task, as in principle any other task associated with the conditions for the implementation of modernization principles in the defense industry, is extremely difficult.
One thing is clear that there is no way to let the situation take its course. If we again try to look at everything that is happening both with the purpose of space programs and with the implementation of the State Defense Order, then the situation itself will clearly not budge.
By the way, it is worth noting that a very remarkable event in the sphere of the state defense order of Russia took place last Friday. In the presence of President Putin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Roman Trotsenko have finally signed a contract for the supply of new Borei-class submarines for the Russian fleet. The signing was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin and Minister of Industry Manturov. After the signing of the contracts for the supply of Boreyevs, it was suggested that common sense prevailed in relations between the Ministry of Defense and industrialists. Now, as Anatoly Serdyukov said, if after 2-3 years the USC has questions about the increase in production costs, the Ministry of Defense will be ready to consider them within the framework of the concluded contract. In general, the construction of new "Boreys" for the Russian fleet has already started at the official level.
The only question left is: what prevented Serdyukov and Trotsenko from making concessions to each other earlier and concluding a contract so necessary for the country? Was it only the absence of Vladimir Putin at the time of signing the papers that hindered it?
