Russia & CIS Defense Policy Blog

The board of directors of the Raspletin main design bureau of the Almaz-Antey air defense concern decided to appoint a new general director at its recent meeting.

“Vitaly Neskorodov, who was the Almaz-Antey air defense concern main design bureau’s first deputy general director until lately, has become its general director,” Almaz-Antey said in a statement on Friday.

Neskorodov has replaced Igor Ashurbeili, who had been the design bureau’s general director since 2000 and who now plans to implement new projects, it said.

Source: Interfax-AVN

Russian aircraft builders have no plans to produce more aircraft that Boeing and Airbus in the next ten years, but they plan to increase the output of military and civilian planes from the previous years, Mikhail Pogosyan, general director of the companies Sukhoi and RSK MIG and acting head of the United Aircraft Building Corporation, said.

“We don’t have a goal to begin building more planes than Boeing and Airbus in the next few years. It’s a goal that cannot be reached in the next 5-10 years,” Pogosyan said on Rossiya 24 television on Friday.

“It took Airbus some 25-30 years to become level with Boeing and even better than it in some respect,” he said.

“I think we can do it faster, but it definitely won’t happen in 2-3 years,” Pogosyan said.

“Of course, we will have to work on building 500 commercial airliners a year. However, I think we should focus more on results and specific achievements every year,” Pogosyan said.

Aircraft builders plan to double the output of military planes in 2011 against 2010, Pogosyan said. As for commercial airliners, there are plans to increase their production to “over thirty planes” against seven airliners produced in 2010, he said.

“I think these goals are quite realistic,” he said.

Source: Interfax-AVN

The gap between the funding of space programs in Russia and the United States is gradually decreasing every year, head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) Anatoly Perminov said on Thursday.

“[The gap] is not growing but decreasing. About two or three years ago NASA’s budget was 17-18 times that of the Roscosmos. Now, to my knowledge, it is seven-eight times. Of course, theirs is higher,” he said on Ekho Moskvy radio station’s twitter.

Source: Interfax-AVN

Roscosmos is looking at a 2011 operating budget of some $3.8 billion.

More than 350,000 outdated weapons and vehicles will be discarded and scrapped over the next decade, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry has told Interfax-AVN.

“Under a new federal program for the industrial scrapping of weapons and hardware for 2011-2015 and until 2020, 60% of outdated weapons and vehicles and 100% of expired ammunition and rockets will be scrapped,” the source said.

As many as 356,000 outdated weapons, including some 50,000 tanks and armored vehicles, over 108 million shells and over 500,000 of various rockets will be discarded both in the army and navy until 2020, the source said.

Special teams of engineers, shell disposal experts and other specialists are being formed and safe ammunition and rocket scrapping technologies are being developed.

About 40% of outdated weapons will be taken to depots for long-term storage, the source said.

Source: Interfax-AVN

The Russian government plans to allot 180 billion rubles for the development of a new family of Russian space rockets and other spacecraft, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) chief Anatoly Perminov told journalists on Tuesday.

“The overall cost of the construction of a projected manned transportation system, a new space rocket system called Rus-M, and the ground technological complex will amount to about 180 billion rubles in the period up to 2015,” Perminov said following a government session dealing with the construction of the Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s Far East.

The sketches of the new launch vehicles and a new-generation spacecraft were patented in 2010, he said.

The Rus-M medium-class rocket capable of carrying payloads reaching 24 tonnes is being developed by the Samara-based TsSKB Progress space center. This rocket should put the new spacecraft Rus being developed by the Energia rocket corporation into orbit for flight trials in 2015. A manned launch of this spacecraft is planned for 2018.

Source: Interfax-AVN

The air reconnaissance unit comprising the Eleron-10 drone plane developed by the Kazan enterprise ENIKS has successfully passed interdepartmental tests, ENIKS chief constructor Ildar Yakulov told Interfax-AVN.

“Improvements will be made to the unit on the basis of the test results and documents for it will be amended,” Yakulov said.

The Eleron-10 drone is a component of another large and complex system developed by a major company which he declined to name.

In 2011, an order for the Eleron-10 for two different purpose systems for the Ground Forces is expected, he said.

The Eleron-10 is intended for reconnaissance and observation at various ranges and can carry radio interference equipment.

Source: Interfax-AVN

New warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles developed in Russia may overcome any existing and future missile defense systems, Yury Solomonov said, the general designer at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology said.

“In 2010 were carried out unique work that allow us to make an absolutely new step in creating a new type of combat equipment that is the result of integrating combat equipment of ballistic type and individual means of its separation, the so-called ‘bus’ at combat missiles,” Solomonov told Interfax-AVN.

“This will end all talks about our fight against a non-existing system of missile defense of an imaginary enemy,” he said.

Source: Interfax-AVN

The December launch of the Bulava strategic rocket from the Yuri Dolgoruky submarine was delayed due to complicated weather conditions, Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology General Designer, Bulava developer Yuri Solomonov told Interfax-AVN.

“There was a certain combination of circumstances. The thickness of the ice was immaterial in contrast to the conditions under which the submarine was due to reach the launch zone. The state commission decided not to expose the Yuri Dolgoruky to the risk and delayed the launch until summer when the White Sea, the bay and the canal are free from the ice,” he said.

“The submarine leaves the bay through a very narrow canal, which is deepened every spring. The canal is not very deep, and the distance between the submarine keel and the canal bottom is only one meter. Under these improbable conditions, the submarine travels through the canal that is over 100 meters long,” Solomonov said.

“A icebreaker goes first, but the submarine also has to move the ice. The submarine weight and engine make this possible. However, when one ice block locks with another, the submarine could run aground,” he said.

Source: Interfax-AVN

Two new generation radar stations incorporated into Russia’s early warning system will be brought into operation in the Kaliningrad and Irkutsk regions, Russian Space Forces Commander Lt. gen. Oleg Ostapenko told journalists on Thursday.

“One of them is already performing certain duties in the Kaliningrad region. Analogous work is being done outside Irkutsk,” Ostapenko said when asked where else early warning radar stations will be built.

The stations being installed in the Kaliningrad and Irkutsk regions are almost identical to the so-called prefabricated radar stations already built in Lekhtusi, the Leningrad region, and Armavir, the Krasnodar territory, the differences will be slight.

It was reported earlier that the first prefabricated radar station Voronezh-M was built in Lekhtusi and another, Voronezh-DM, in Armavir.

Source: Interfax-AVN

The federal target program titled, “Developing Russian cosmodromes in 2006-2015″ involves the construction of ground infrastructure for the Angara space rocket family in Plesetsk (Arkhangelsk region) and infrastructure improvements, Space Troops Commander Lt. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko told journalists on Thursday.

“Total federal budget spending for the program implementation in 2010 was more than 5 billion rubles,” Ostapenko said.

The construction and reconstruction of a universal launch pad and the Angara, as well as reconstruction of the Plesetsk airfield, a unified technical complex for preparing military satellites, continued in 2010, he said. Boilers were reconstructed and are now operating. The reconstruction of the cosmodrome’s railways was fully completed, while reconstruction of motorways is 95% complete.

Under the plan to improve infrastructure and staff housing, wastewater works and engineering networks are being built for the area N2, reconstruction of an officers’ dormitory is complete and the kindergarten N12 is due to be completed in the first quarter of 2011, the Space Troops commander said.

In 2011, the plan to implement the federal target program involves the reconstruction of a launch pad for Soyuz-2 carrier rockets, water supply and sewage networks, officers’ dormitories, two medical centers, the Gorodskaya boarding platform and a military polyclinic and construction of the Burya checkpoint. Auctions were conducted and design documentation was prepared as required by law, the general said.

Source: Interfax-AVN