TASS, a Russian-government-owned news outlet, is reporting that Russian President Vladmir Putin has dissolved Roscosmos. The space agency, founded shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, has run into a number of rocket troubles of late. Putin claims the problems include widescale mismanagement of appropriated funds and internal corruption.

Roscosmos will be officially dissolved on New Year's 2016 and eventually replaced with an all-new federal agency with more government oversight. The decree instructs cabinet-level officials to begin the liquidation process of the agency for some continuity of operation.

The new organization will be run as a corporation rather than an agency. Techinsider reports that Putin hopes to make the new organization more competitive with commercial space players like SpaceX, rather than the traditional mix of cooperation and rivalry with NASA. They also report that it's unlikely to bring about any radical changes, including Russia's ISS cooperation. How it will affect any upcoming space missions remains to be seen, although the first part of the ExoMars mission fleet has been constructed and delivered, awaiting a March 2016 launch.





This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io