spacetoday.net: Khrunichev head fired

Posted: Tue, Nov 29, 2005, 7:10 AM ET (1210 GMT)
The Russian government fired the head of the Russian space company Khrunichev on Monday, holding him responsible for a pair of recent failures. Alexander Medvedev, the director-general of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, was replaced Monday in a decree signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Although Russian media reports offered few details to explain his removal, Space News reported that Medvedev was blamed for the failed launch of a Rockot booster in early October and problems with the Monitor-E earth observing satellite launched earlier this year. Putin has installed Vladimir Nesterov, an official with the Russian space agency Roskosmos, as the new head of Khrunichev. The company is best known as the manufacturer of the Proton launch vehicle; the company is also developing a successor, the Angara, whose development has fallen far behind original schedules.