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Space agency of Russia
the Russian space program starting from 1992

The Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (Роскосмос), is a state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research. Originating from the Soviet space program founded in the 1950s, Roscosmos emerged following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It initially began as the Russian Space Agency, which was established on 25 February 1992 and restructured in 1999 and 2004, as the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), respectively. Roscosmos is headquartered in Moscow, with its main Mission Control Center in the nearby city of Korolyov, and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center located in Star City in Moscow Oblast. Its launch facilities include Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world's first and largest spaceport, and Vostochny Cosmodrome, which is being built in the Russian Far East in Amur Oblast. Its director since July 2022 is Yury Borisov. As the main successor to the Soviet space program, Roscosmos' legacy includes the world's first satellite, first human spaceflight, and first space station (Salyut). Its current activities include the International Space Station, wherein it is a major partner. On 22 February 2019, Roscosmos announced the construction of its new headquarters in Moscow, the National Space Centre. Its Astronaut Corps is the first in the world's history.

The Soviet space program did not have central executive agencies. Instead, its organizational architecture was multi centered; it was the design bureaus and the council of designers that had the most say, not the political leadership. The creation of a central agency after the reorganization of the Soviet Union into the Russian Federation was therefore a new development. The Russian Space Agency was formed on 25 February 1992, by a decree of President Yeltsin. Yuri Koptev, who had previously worked with designing Mars landers at NPO Lavochkin, became the agency's first director. In the early years, the agency suffered from lack of authority as the powerful design bureaus fought to protect their own spheres of operation and to survive. For example, the decision to keep Mir in operation beyond 1999 was not made by the agency, but by the private shareholder board of the Energia design bureau. Another example is that the decision to develop the new Angara rocket was rather a function of Khrunichev's ability to attract resources than a conscious long term decision by the agency.

As a result of a series of reliability problems, and proximate to the failure of a July 2013 Proton M launch, a major reorganization of the Russian space industry was undertaken. The United Rocket and Space Corporation was formed as a joint stock corporation by the government in August 2013 to consolidate the Russian space sector. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said "the failure prone space sector is so troubled that it needs state supervision to overcome its problems." Three days following the Proton M launch failure, the Russian government had announced that "extremely harsh measures" would be taken "and spell the end of the [Russian] space industry as we know it." Information indicated then that the government intended to reorganize in such a way as to "preserve and enhance the Roscosmos space agency." Under the 2013 plan, Roscosmos was to "act as a federal executive body and contracting authority for programs to be implemented by the industry."

In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin said "it 'is necessary to drastically improve the quality and reliability of space and launch vehicles' to preserve Russia's increasingly threatened leadership in space." In November 2018 Alexei Kudrin, head of Russian financial audit agency, named Roscosmos as the public enterprise with "the highest losses" due to "irrational spending" and outright theft and corruption, under the leadership of Igor Komarov who was terminated in May 2018 in favour of Rogozin. In 2020 Roscosmos under Rogozin reneged on its participation in Lunar Gateway, a NASA led project that will see a lunar orbiter spaceport for the moon. It had previously signed an agreement in September 2017 with the Americans. In March 2021, Roscosmos signed a memorandum of cooperative construction of a lunar base called the International Lunar Research Station with the China National Space Administration.”

In April 2021, Roscosmos announced that it will be departing the ISS program after 2024. In its place, it was announced that a new space station (Russian Orbital Service Station) will be constructed starting in 2025. In June 2021 Rogozin complained that sanctions imposed in the wake of the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea were hurting Roscosmos. In September 2021, Roscosmos announced its revenue and net income, losing 25 billion roubles and 1 billion roubles respectively in 2020, due to the reduction of profit from foreign contracts, an increase in show up pay, stay at home days and personnel health expenses due to the COVID 19 pandemic. According to Roscosmos, these losses would also impact the corporation for the next two years. In October, Roscosmos placed the tests of rocket engines in the engineering bureau of chemical automatics in Voronezh on hold for one month to deliver 33 tons of oxygen to local medical centers, as part of aid for the COVID 19 pandemic. In December 2021, Government of Russia confirmed determination of the agreement with Roscosmos for development of next gen space systems, the document been provided for the officials in July, 2020.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 Roscosmos launched 9 rockets in 2022 and 7 in the first half of 2023. In early March 2022 Roscosmos under Rogozin suspended its participation in the ESA's Kourou, French Guiana spaceport, in a tit for tat move over the sanctions imposed in the wake of the Russian invasion. As well Rogozin said he would suspend delivery of the RD 181 engine which is used for the Northrop Grumman Antares Cygnus space cargo delivery system. On 2 May 2022 Rogozin announced that Roscosmos would terminate its involvement in the ISS, with 12 months' notice as stipulated in the international contract that governs the satellite. This followed the 3 March 2022 announcement that Roscosmos would cease cooperation on scientific experiments at the spacelab, and the 25 March 2022 announcement by Rogozin that "cooperation with Europe is now impossible after sanctions over the Ukraine war." Rogozin was removed from his job as CEO in July 2022, At one point in time NASA had bought 71 return trips on Soyuz for almost $4 billion over six years. The global space launch services market was valued at $12.4 billion in 2021 and was forecast to reach $38 billion by decade's end. An American academic wrote that in the wake of the Russian invasion Roscosmos' share of that market was likely to decline in favour of new entrants such as Japan and India, as well as commercial entrants like SpaceX and Blue Origin. In June 2023 Roscosmos held in a campaign to recruit volunteers for the Uran Battalion, a militia for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2023 Borisov announced the need for 150 billion rubles in the next three years in order to build the Russian space station. At completion in 2032 it will have absorbed 609 billion rubles. In February 2024 at the 2023 AGM Borisov announced the loss of 180 billion rubles in export revenues, chiefly engine sales and launch services, because of the Western hostility to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos had lost 90% of its launch service contracts since the advent of the war.

From 2024 on Roscosmos headquarters will be located in the new National Space Center in the Moscow district of Fili.

Roscosmos is one of the partners in the International Space Station program. It contributed the core space modules Zarya and Zvezda, which were both launched by Proton rockets and later were joined by NASA's Unity Module. The Rassvet module was launched aboard and is primarily used for cargo storage and as a docking port for visiting spacecraft. The Nauka module is the final planned component of the ISS, launch was postponed several times from the initially planned date in 2007, but attached to ISS in July 2021. Roscosmos is responsible for expedition crew launches by Soyuz TMA spacecraft and resupplies the space station with Progress space transporters. After the initial ISS contract with NASA expired, Roscosmos and NASA, with the approval of the US government, entered into a space contract running until 2011, according to which Roscosmos will sell NASA spots on Soyuz spacecraft for approximately $21 million per person each way, thus $42 million to and back from the ISS per person, as well as provide Progress transport flights, at $50 million per Progress as outlined in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study. Roscosmos announced that according to this arrangement, crewed Soyuz flights would be doubled to 4 per year and Progress flights doubled to 8 per year beginning in 2008. Roscosmos has provided space tourism for fare paying passengers to ISS through the Space Adventures company. As of 2009, six space tourists have contracted with Roscosmos and have flown into space, each for an estimated fee of at least $20 million (USD). Continued international collaboration in ISS missions has been thrown into doubt by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia, although resupply missions continued in 2022 and 2023.

Roscosmos uses a family of several launch rockets, the most famous of them being the R 7, commonly known as the Soyuz rocket that is capable of launching about 7.5 tons into low Earth orbit (LEO). The Proton rocket (or UR 500K) has a lift capacity of over 20 tons to LEO. Smaller rockets include Rokot and other Stations. Currently rocket development encompasses both a new rocket system, Angara, as well as enhancements of the Soyuz rocket, Soyuz 2 and Soyuz 2 3. Two modifications of the Soyuz, the Soyuz 2.1a and Soyuz 2.1b have already been successfully tested, enhancing the launch capacity to 8.5 tons to LEO.

VehicleManufacturerPayload mass (kg)Planned maiden flightNotesLEOGTOOtherAmurKB Khimavtomatika10.500 reusable

12.500 expendable2026First reusable methalox Russian rocketIrtysh/Soyuz 5Progress Rocket Space Centre18.000 crewed

15.500 uncrewed50002024Base of the SHLLV YeniseiYeniseiRSC Energia

Progress Rocket Space Centre103.0002600027000 to TLI2028First super heavy launch vehicle being developed by the Russian space industry since the fall of the USSRDonRSC Energia

Progress Rocket Space Centre140.0002950033000 to TLI2032–2035Based on the Yenisei launch vehicle, the Don launch vehicle (RN STK 2) is being developed by adding another stage

One of Roscosmos's projects that was widely covered in the media in 2005 was Kliper, a small lifting body reusable spacecraft. While Roscosmos had reached out to ESA and JAXA as well as others to share development costs of the project, it also stated that it will go forward with the project even without the support of other space agencies. This statement was backed by the approval of its budget for 2006–2015, which includes the necessary funding of Kliper. However, the Kliper program was cancelled in July 2006, and has been replaced by the new Orel project. as of 2023, no crafts were launched.

"Resurs P" is a series of Russian commercial Earth observation satellites capable of acquiring high resolution imagery (resolution up to 1.0 m). The spacecraft is operated by Roscosmos as a replacement of the Resurs DK No.1 satellite. Create HEO space system "Arctic" to address the hydrological and meteorological problems in the Arctic region and the northern areas of the Earth, with the help of two spacecraft "Arktika M" and in the future within the system can create a communications satellite "Arktika MS" and radar satellites "Arktika R."

The launch of two satellites "Obzor R" (Review R) Remote Sensing of the Earth, with the AESA radar and four spacecraft "Obzor O" (Review O) to capture the Earth's surface in normal and infrared light in a broad swath of 80 km with a resolution of 10 meters. The first two satellites of the projects planned for launch in 2015. Gonets: Civilian low Earth orbit communication satellite system. On 2016, the system consists of 13 satellites (12 Gonets M and 1 Gonets D1).

In 2018, Russia agreed to help build the Suffa observatory in Uzbekistan. The observatory was started in 1991, but stalled after the fall of the USSR.

On 19 July 2014, Roscosmos launched the Foton M4 satellite containing, among other animals and plants, a group of five geckos. The five geckos, four females and one male, were used as a part of the Gecko F4 research program aimed at measuring the effects of weightlessness on the lizards' ability to procreate and develop in the harsh environment. However, soon after the spacecraft exited the atmosphere, mission control lost contact with the vessel which led to an attempt to reestablish communication that was only achieved later in the mission. When the satellite returned to Earth after its planned two month mission had been cut short to 44 days, the space agency researchers reported that all the geckos had perished during the flight. The exact cause that led to the deaths of the geckos was declared unknown by the scientific team in charge of the project. Reports from the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems in Russia have indicated that the lizards had been dead for at least a week prior to their return to Earth. A number of those connected to the mission have theorized that a failure in the vessel's heating system may have caused the cold blooded reptiles to freeze to death. Included in the mission were a number of fruit flies, plants, and mushrooms which all survived the mission.

The Russian Space Forces is the military counterpart of the Roscosmos with similar mission objectives as of the United States Space Force. The Russian branch was formed after the merging of the space components of the Russian Air Force and the Aerospace Defense Forces (VKO) in 2015. The Space Forces controls Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch facility. Roscosmos and the Space Forces share control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where Roscosmos reimburses the VKO for the wages of many of the flight controllers during civilian launches. Roscosmos and the Space Forces also share control of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. It has been announced that Russia is to build another spaceport in Tsiolkovsky, Amur Oblast. The Vostochny Cosmodrome was scheduled to be finished by 2018 having launched its first rocket in 2016.