Sergei Krikalev was reinstated as director of manned programs at Roscosmos

by time news

Rogozin “recognized his experience and level of competence”

The latest events occurring with the famous cosmonaut, leading expert in this field, Sergei Krikalev, can be called a swing. A week ago, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Roscosmos state corporation, dismissed him from the post of executive director for manned programs, and on Monday, June 21 … he returned him again. With the wording that he “took into account the experience and competence of Krikalev.” If you do not know all the ins and outs of this story, you can come to completely unflattering conclusions regarding the industry leadership: where is the logic? Now that justice has been done, let’s try again to figure out what happened.

Recall that on June 11, two days after the supervisory board at Roscosmos, Krikalev was deprived by Rogozin of the post of executive director for manned space programs of the state corporation and transferred to the status of an advisor to the general director. As it became known to “MK”, ​​the resignation was something like revenge for the fact that Sergei Konstantinovich expressed his fundamental disagreement with the decision of the leadership, refused to put his signature on an important document. As a result, he was demoted in the rank “for non-compliance with corporate ethics”!

It was a very offensive demotion for Krikalev, a competent and responsible specialist in his field, a hero of the Soviet Union and a Hero of the Russian Federation. As knowledgeable people explained to us, it was akin to demotion of a talented engineer to the position of watchman. And who was accused of unethicality !? A person who, in any position, tried to put the problems of astronautics above all else. Yes, not everything went smoothly for him during the time when he was in charge of the Cosmonaut Training Center, there was a discrepancy in opinions with the cosmonaut corps. But who doesn’t have similar problems? On the whole, after many years (Krikalev has been the executive director for manned programs of Roscosmos for five years), all professionals speak of him with great respect.

Officially, Roscosmos explained the transfer of Krikalev to the position of an advisor by the connection with the beginning of the preparation of a draft design for a new domestic orbital station (Russian Orbital Service Station, ROSS). “A decision has been made to transfer the issues of manned space exploration to the jurisdiction of the Executive Director for Advanced Programs and Science of the State Corporation“ Roscosmos ”Alexander Vitalievich Bloshenko,” the official statement said. As always (this was the case before in emergency situations), the leadership of the Civil Code did not know what to write, and wrote what first came to mind. In general, you understand …

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper was the first to speak out in defense of Krikalev, monitoring the situation day after day. Later, famous cosmonauts stood up for Sergei Konstantinovich – Svetlana Savitskaya, Sergei Zaletin, Gennady Padalka, Fedor Yurchikhin, Mikhail Kornienko, Sergei Zhukov. Everyone considered it a matter of honor to express their point of view, disagreement with the decision of the head of Roscosmos.

A few days after the wave of public indignation that arose, Dmitry Rogozin had already reversed his decision. Instead of an advisor, he offered Krikalev the position of head of a new organization that would be responsible for the operation of the ISS. This is four years before the end of its work … Another hasty decision, some people described it as follows: “to the chickens to laugh – to become the main operator of the ISS.” This is after the same Dmitry Olegovich announced the commissioning of a new ROSS station from 2025 …

However, before Krikalev had time to accept such a “flattering” offer, just a week later Rogozin changed his mind again. As MK was informed in the press service of the state corporation, he recognized Krikalev’s “experience and level of competence” and reinstated him in the position of executive director of manned programs.

In one of its previous articles on this topic, MK reported that one of the major forces that supported the opinion of Krikalev, Savitskaya and all other cosmonauts was the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov. Apparently, the current return of Krikalev to his former position in this case was not without his influence.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28563 dated June 22, 2021

Newspaper headline:
Sergey Krikalev sat down in an old chair

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