Last week, the inaugural launch of a rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in far eastern Russia was delayed for a day due to a technical glitch, most likely caused by a cable with defective soldering joints. Russia President Vladimir Putin was on hand and was reportedly not amused by the one-day delay.

Under blue skies, the Soyuz-2.1a rocket launched without incident the next day, April 28. Politically, the damage appears to have been done, however. On Monday, it was reported that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin had formed a special investigation commission to investigate the one-day launch delay. Journalist Anatoly Zak, who covers the Russian space industry on his website Russian Space Web, reported : "Given a minor technical impact of the delay, the investigation likely had [a] primarily political nature, namely it was aimed to demonstrate to the Kremlin that the industry problems were being dealt with."

Soon after the commission undertook its work, Leonid Shalimov, the head of NPO Automatics, which was responsible for the failed cables, resigned. The head of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation, Igor Komarov, and the country's senior space official, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, escaped the incident with only reprimands from Putin.

The Russian president has considered the modern, $3 billion facility one of his signature projects, yet its opening had been delayed for months as it was beset by hunger strikes, claims of unpaid workers, and other challenges. A year ago, Russia’s prosecutor general reported that $126 million had been stolen during construction.