Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos will receive just 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion) in government funding over the next ten years, less than half of estimated figures cited by space officials earlier this year, a Roscosmos statement said on Monday evening.
The space agency was planning on receiving around 3.4 trillion rubles as part of the Federal Space Program 2016-2025 (FSP), a decade-long planning document that lays out Russia's goals in space and allocates funding for them.
But Russia's economic crisis and a broad readjustment of government spending across all sectors has forced Roscosmos to redraft its 10-year proposal several times over the past year. Just three weeks after citing 3.4 trillion rubles in March, the figure was lowered by 41 percent to 2 trillion ($30 billion).
“Based on today's economic situation, the funding for activities in the FSP is set at [1.521 trillion] rubles,” Roscosmos director Igor Komarov was quoted as saying in the statement. “We have optimized the program, maintaining key projects … which will allow the industry to develop.”
Komarov said the document, which will be submitted to the government in the near future for approval, secures just 1.4 trillion rubles ($21 billion) at the start.
The remaining 115 billion rubles will depend on the implementation of an unspecified project after 2021, depending on economic conditions.
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