Dmitry Rogozin is not having the best year. Earlier, he was essentially demoted from his position as deputy prime minister over defense and space to a position managing Roscosmos, the Russian space corporation. And since then he has had to grapple with a number of embarrassing spaceflight problems, including an errant drill hole in a Soyuz spacecraft and an emergency landing of another one after a rocket exploded mid-flight.

But Rogozin is nothing if not a fighter, and he now appears to be taking steps to address the deteriorating situation at Roscosmos—and the Russian aerospace companies that build rockets and spacecraft for the country.

The Kommersant newspaper obtained a copy of a directive that Rogozin has issued to the leaders of companies and facilities that serve Roscosmos. The purpose of the letter, the newspaper reports, is to help the companies root out "poor manufacturing culture and negligent attitudes of staff toward their work." (This article was translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, a former US Air Force Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst.)

Most analysts attribute the agency's recent problems to the relatively low wages Russia pays in its aerospace industry and the difficulty this has engendered in attracting and retaining a qualified workforce, resulting in quality-control issues. The result is that the long-reliable Russian rockets and spacecraft have become increasingly less reliable.

No funds for cleanup

In his letter, however, Rogozin asserts that some of these problems are caused by shabbily maintained facilities. “The grounds have not been cleaned up for years—in many places there is construction trash and roads are torn up,” his letter states. “Employees at such companies have become accustomed to such conditions as normal, and this creates a habit of poor manufacturing culture and a sloppy attitude toward work."

There is a rather intriguing line in the story about the fact that, during some of his visits to aerospace facilities, "Rogozin was diverted from his planned routes along company facades." Among the problems observed, according to the newspaper, are holes in walls and wooden roofs, with buckets on tables and floors to capture water leaks.

Rogozin says that such conditions make working in the aerospace industry undesirable. Young people who visit companies as prospective employees, the letter states, will only apply to work there if they can find a job nowhere else.

The directive is silent on the issue of providing higher wages to those prospective employees. However, it does tell managers that Roscosmos will not pay any additional funds for cleanup. Claims that there are insufficient finances to maintain clean and trash-free facilities “cannot be a justification of such a state of affairs,” the letter states. Moreover, "With the support of the entire staff it is always possible to clean up facilities and grounds so they are orderly.”