Off to the gulag Mr. Nesterov

"Space Center Chief Loses Job over Failed Launches"

by

September 4th, 2012

SPACE DAILY

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Vladimir Nesterov as general director of the Khrunichev Space Center, the state press service reported on Monday.

The Russian space industry has been plagued by a series of mishaps recently.

In early August, a Proton-M rocket carrier with a Briz-M booster failed to bring two satellites into a calculated transition orbit, which led to the suspension of all Proton-M launches.

One of the two satellites carried by the Proton-M was designed and manufactured by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center for the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC).

In August 2011, the malfunction of a Briz-M booster led to the loss of the Express-AM4 telecommunication satellite.