# Roscosmos Roscosmos is [[Russia]]'s state space corporation. It runs Russia's rockets, cosmonaut program, launch sites and share of the [[International Space Station]]. It is the heir to the Soviet space program that launched [[Sputnik]] and Yuri Gagarin. Since 2015 it has been a state corporation rather than an ordinary government agency, combining the space agency with most of Russia's rocket and satellite industry. Its director general since February 2025 is Dmitry Bakanov, who replaced Yuri Borisov. ## A program in decline The Soviet program once led the world. Its Russian successor has been shrinking for three decades. Russia conducted 17 orbital launches in 2025, the same as in 2024. That compares with 181 for the United States and 91 for China, and it ties Russia with New Zealand. Leaving aside the pandemic years, it was Russia's lowest launch count since 1961. In April 2026, the scientific director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' space research institute said Russia has no plans for crewed deep-space or lunar missions in the next decade. Recent setbacks include: - **The lost commercial market.** [[SpaceX]]'s cheaper reusable rockets took the commercial launch business that Russian rockets such as Proton once dominated. - **The lost U.S. customer.** From 2011 to 2020, NASA paid Russia for every astronaut seat to the space station, because Russia's [[Soyuz]] was the only way there. SpaceX's [[SpaceX Dragon]] ended that in 2020. - **Luna-25.** Russia's first Moon mission since 1976 crashed into the lunar surface in August 2023. ## The war and the break with the West After Russia's full-scale invasion of [[Ukraine]] in 2022, Roscosmos became openly political. Its then-chief, Dmitry Rogozin, threatened that the space station could fall out of orbit without Russian help and demanded that the British government sell its stake in the satellite company [[OneWeb]] before Russia would launch OneWeb's satellites. OneWeb refused, and its satellites were left in Kazakhstan. Europe pulled out of a joint Mars rover mission with Russia, and Russian rockets stopped launching from Europe's spaceport, ending business with [[Arianespace]]. ## Still partners in orbit Despite the war, NASA and Roscosmos have kept working together on the space station, which neither side can run alone. Under a "seat-swap" arrangement begun in 2022, Russian cosmonauts fly on American spacecraft and American astronauts fly on Soyuz, with no money changing hands. In July 2026, Bakanov and NASA Administrator [[Jared Isaacman]] agreed that Russia would support station operations through 2030 and continue the seat swaps until then. Russia plans to build its own national space station afterward. Space is one of the very few working channels left between Washington and Moscow. ## Why it's on the map Roscosmos shows what a former superpower's space program looks like after decades of underfunding, corruption scandals, sanctions and lost markets. It also shows the limits of decoupling: even after the invasion of Ukraine, the United States and Russia stayed tied together in orbit because the space station was built to require both. That is a useful contrast with the [[Wolf Amendment]], which deliberately kept China out of the same kind of interdependence. ## See also - [[Soviet-Russian Space Program Timeline]] — the full history - [[Soyuz]] · [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]] — Russia's spacecraft and main launch site - [[International Space Station]] — the partnership that survived the war - [[Russia]] · [[Vladimir Putin]] — the state behind Roscosmos - [[Russo-Ukrainian War]] — the break with the West - [[Space Hub]] — the parent hub