Russia’s loss from failed satellite launches estimated at $550mln

PanARMENIAN.Net - Over the past four years the Russian government has lost nearly $550 million from uninsured failed satellite launches, the Vedomosti newspaper said Wednesday, March 12, citing an aerospace industry audit.

A letter from the Russian Association of Aviation and Space Insurers responding to a Kremlin audit said that five of the six failures among 100 launches in the past four years were of uninsured payloads, RIA Novosti reports.

Russia’s space agency is expected to submit a draft law on compulsory insurance in the space industry by the end of this year, according to the Russian government’s website.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space and defense industries, said last week that Russia must focus on profits in the space sector to ensure a return on state investments.

The country, long a world leader in rocket construction, is a major supplier of launch vehicles for foreign payloads, but has failed to become a market contender in the lucrative satellite service and manufacturing industry.

A 2013 report by the Washington-based Satellite Industry Association said that in 2012 just 3.4 percent of the $189.5 billion in industry revenues came from launch services.