Alexander Medvedev vacated the GD office at Khrunichev Center by ruling of the president.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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President Replaces Designer by Colonel
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin sealed the management upheaval at Khrunichev Space Research Center. Khrunichev GD Alexander Medvedev has been told to vacate the office in favor of Vladimir Nesterov, head of one of the Federal Space Agency’s departments. Nesterov’s promotion means Anatoly Perminov, who is in charge of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), has ultimately succeeded to gain control over the nearly $1-billion portfolio of commercial orders.
Putin’s ruling on Medvedev’s dismissal was announced yesterday, November 28, after the sitting of the Federal Space Agency’s board. Medvedev, 53, had worked at Khrunichev Center for nearly 30 years, starting from an engineer and up to the general director. New head of Khrunichev Center is Reserve Colonel Vladimir Nesterov, 56, who had headed one of Roskosmos departments before the appointment. “An experienced executive,” Perminov was more than laconic when asked to describe his subordinate.
Former Space Forces Commander, General-Colonel Anatoly Perminov took over the Federal Space Agency in March 2004. Since then, he has easily managed to replace a raft of the general directors at the enterprises with commercial orders of foreign clients. Korolev Energy, Lavochkin Research and Production Association, Design Center of Vehicle Engineering, Research Institute of Electrical Engineering and some others got new general directors as a result of Perminov’s activities. But all of them on aggregate cannot match Khrunichev Center in terms of commercial orders, which lucrative portfolio sets forth more than a dozen and a half contacts for Proton-M and Rokot boosters worth nearly $1 billion. Perminov is unable to independently ouster Khrunichev’s GD. Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, ruled far back in 1993 that only the president is authorized to appoint a general director to Khrunchev Center.
Taking on the flank, Perminov attempted to add Roskosmos to the list of founders of Russia’s-U.S. International Launch Services (ILS) but was rebuffed by American partners, a source with Khrunichev Center said on condition of anonymity. ILS was set up by Khrunichev Center, Energy Corp. and U.S. Lockheed Martin in 1995 for commercial operation of Proton booster and U.S. Atlas. This year, ILS has won over 60 percent of the global boosters’ market, having gained launching contracts for nine satellites of 15 put up for the tenders. Its contracts sometimes pick to $500 million on year once Proton started making commercial launches in 1996.
This fall proved crucial for Khrunichev GD. First, the Rokot booster crashed before delivering European CryoSat to the orbit; second, Monitor-E remote sensing satellite of Khrunichev-make, failed to properly operate. Although the reasons of Rokot crash were determined by early November and Monitor-E delivered the first shots of the Earth past Saturday, all of this hasn't sufficed for leaving Alexander Medvedev in his office.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 29, 2005
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