Russia&CIS

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos has been accused by a Russian journalist of spending "billions on space but kopecks" on the engineering talent required for the sustainable and long-term success of Russia's space ambitions.

Andrey Potapov is an alumnus of the economic faculty of the Moscow State University and a former employee of Scanex. He was also director general of a pioneering Russian satellite manufacturer Sputnix.

Azerbaijan and Iran have concluded negotiations on space cooperation, to include the Iranian use of Azerbaijani communications satellites and the joint development of a remote sensing satellite, according Azerbaijani media reports.

The Board of Directors of Russia’s Glavkosmos have elected on 6 December 2018 Dmitry Loskutov to be the company’s new Director General.

Following a string of high-profile incidents, failures, and corruption scandals and allegations, Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, has hit back at its Russian and international critics in a bizarre claim that criticism of the struggling space programme is an "information attack" designed to discredit Roscosmos and its efforts at reforming Russia's moribund space sector.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Firefly), a provider of economical, and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft and in-space services, have announced that they have been selected by NASA for the award of a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract.

The Russian military successfully launched three Strela-3M communications satellites on 30 November 2018 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northwest Russia, according to reports from TASS, the Russian state news agency.

Azerbaijan and Australia are reportedly in ongoing discussions regarding collaborative satellite projects, according to a report from Trend News Agency, an Azerbaijani news outlet.

The Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, has announced its intention to build a constellation of satellites called Marathon to serve the expanding Internet of Things (IoT) market, as part of its Sphere satellite system.

MIURA-1, the suborbital rocket developed by PLD Space, will be launched from "El Arenosillo" Experimentation Center (CEDEA), of the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Spain's national space agency, during the third quarter of 2019. This technological demonstrator, whose development began in 2011, is designed to provide scientific and commercial access to space from Spain.