KUBINKA (Moscow region), September 6. /TASS/. Funding of the Russian State Space Corporation, Roscosmos, from the federal budget may be considerably curtailed, the corporation’s head Igor Komarov said on Tuesday, adding that the exact figures would be named in the coming months.
"There are different figures by the programs. However, rather serious cuts are expected in general. We are currently discussing these issues. The exact figures will be known after we approve them," he said.
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According to Komarov, the financing of Russia’s program for developing spaceports may be slashed to 500 billion rubles ($7.7 bln).
"About 500 billion rubles," he said, when asked how much the corporation might be allowed to spend on the program by 2025.
According to him, the sums by which the budget of the Federal Space Program until 2025, the GLONASS Federal Target Program and the Development of Russian Cosmodromes Federal Target Program will be cut will be known in the coming months.
Komarov told TASS in an interview the federal program must be approved by the end of 2016 in order to cause no further delays in building the Vostochny spaceport. "Practically all issues" but for the financing limits have been settled.
The Russian government approved the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 in mid-March. The program’s funding will amount to 1.4 trillion rubles ($21.61 billion), instead of the initial sum of 2 trillion rubles ($30.88 billion) envisaged by the draft prepared in spring 2015. In addition, the approved draft of the document envisages an additional 115 billion rubles ($1.77 billion) in allocations after 2021.