Russia’s federal space industry has been beset by corruption, “moral decay” and billions of dollars worth of financial violations, according to government officials.
An investigation by Russia’s public spending watchdog agency revealed that in 2014 alone 92 billion rubles ($1.8bn, £1.2bn) was misused by the Roscosmos space agency.
“At first I could not believe my inspectors,” Tatyana Golikova, head of the watchdog agency, said on Friday (22 May).
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has said that the Roscosmos agency will be abolished and replaced by a state corporation in the second half of 2015.
Rogozin blamed the financial mismanagement of the Roscosmos agency for a string of spacecraft accidents since 2010.