Moltz, James Clay. 2020. “The Russian Space Program: In Search of a New Business Model.” Asia Policy 27 (2): 19–26. doi:10.1353/asp.2020.0025.Over the past three decades, Russia’s space program has ridden a wild and at times unpleasant roller coaster. Following the Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991, its once world-leading space sector suffered a near-death experience over the following decade after state funding plummeted.Under this duress, the space program rapidly transformed itself into a low-cost commercial provider of launch and human spaceflight services to the rest of the world, but only barely getting by. After 2000, Vladimir Putin’s resurrection of the space program into a condition of functionality, relative power, and even international respect by the first decade of the 21st century constituted a remarkable turnaround. Since 2014, however, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Western sanctions, and a series of government policies that have reasserted central control over space enterprises, the space program has become less innovative and more militarily focused, while lacking a clear future direction.
