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Do svidaniya Roscosmos. By the way, any idea where that 92 BEEELLION rubles went?

Russians ready a new state corporation. Called Roscosmos

Following the announcement that the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, managed to "lose" 92 billion rubles ($1.8bn) last year, it is set to be replaced by a state corporation during the second half of 2015.

CNN Money reports that Tatyana Golikova, head of the Account Chamber of Russia (the national audit office) told the Russian Federal Assembly of her shock upon discovering the amount Roscosmos had misplaced.

"At first I could not believe my inspectors," she said on Friday.

Dodgy dealings, accusations of corruption, striking workers, and the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome ("Eastern Spaceport") has left the space agency on the brink of collapse.

Vladimir Putin has already announced he will personally oversee the facility's development.

The spaceport is considered a necessary replacement to the Baikonur Cosmodrone, based in Kazakhstan, which has been Russia's only launching facility since the days of Yuri Gagarin.

CNN reports that as if to "add to the misery, Russia has lost two spacecraft in the last month. A crewless cargo space ship burned up in the Earth's atmosphere after a communication failure, and a Proton-M carrier rocket carrying a Mexican satellite crashed in Siberia".

Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy Prime Minister, has reportedly blamed the accident on corruption in the space industry. "With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate."

Rogozin was a guest on a talk-show on Sunday evening, according to The Moscow Times, where he clarified that the upper house of the Russian legislature had approved the abolition of Roscosmos.

The new state corporation will also be called Roscosmos.

The Moscow Times reports "While the old Roscosmos was responsible primarily for mission planning, with other state entities building and designing space equipment, the new Roscosmos will unite all elements of the space process under one house." ®

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