Russian spaceship maker has to tighten belt

MOSCOW, July 31 (Reuters) RKK Energia, Russia's main producer of spacecraft, sacked its head today and will enact a crisis programme to stave off possible bankruptcy after earlier ''financial idealism'', space industry officials said.

The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK Energia) is the main Russian contractor for the multi-national International Space Station (ISS) and also makes satellites and rockets.

It appears, some ambitious projects may be now put on hold.

''To our regret, the funds being allotted do not allow us to implement in full some of the grandiose plans -- it is enough to mention a flight to the Moon and a flight to Mars,'' Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Russia's Roskosmos state space agency, said in an interview aired by Vesti-24 television channel.

Earlier on Thursday, Energia shareholders voted to replace Nikolai Sevastianov, the company's chief since 2005, with Vitaly Lopota, who was nominated by Roskosmos.

''We intend to introduce emergency administration for the corporation, because the financial idealism that existed here has led not to flights to the Moon, but to bankruptcy,'' Russia's main television channels showed Lopota as saying.

In April, Sevastianov told the Vedomosti daily Energia was working on a new space transport system that could eventually lead to the industrial development of the Moon.

RKK Energia alone absorbs more than 40 percent of all state funds allotted for Russia's space industry.

''The man (Sevastianov) came from business to lead Energia, but he overestimated business opportunities in an organisation which exists mainly thanks to the (state) budget,'' Davydov said.

''To make business on the budget ... we disagreed on that.'' THE CLIPPER OF DISCORD Competing with two other rocket design bureaux, Sevastianov had been actively promoting a next-generation, reusable, manned spacecraft called the Clipper that could have been selected as the successor to the veteran, single-use Soviet-era Soyuz craft.

But last July Roskosmos suddenly cancelled the tender.

''Sevastianov himself said the main reason for his sacking is the Clipper rocket system,'' Vesti-24 said.

Davydov said the tender had been cancelled because none of its participants had presented a design of the new spacecraft which would meet all of Roskosmos' technical requirements.

He said a new tender would be held and a contract to build the chosen model of the ship would be signed by the end of 2008.

''We hope that already after 2012-13 we will seriously get down to creating this apparatus,'' he said.

Russia plays a pivotal role, sending crews and cargo to supply the ISS, a 100-billion dollars project of 16 nations that is around 60 per cent finished.

US space shuttles can take more astronauts and cargo into orbit, but the shuttle fleet has undergone lengthy maintenance overhauls and faced technical problems since the 2003 Columbia disaster in which seven shuttle crew died.

Davydov said the maintenance of the ISS was already a strain for Energia's budget. He said he saw more pressure when the US space shuttles are retired in 2010.

''Today RKK Energia is the only organisation in the world which stays in orbit 24 hours a day,'' Lopota said. ''The entire world's space exploration industry depends on it today.'' Reuters AK VP0058