Roscosmos often does not have accurate data on the reasons for the failure of its own spacecraft, a representative of the state corporation Yuri Makarov told RIA Novosti.
“When our satellites fail, we often do not know the reasons for this. We talk about heavy charged particles, cosmic rays, the impact of man-made objects, sometimes we talk about deliberate impact on spacecraft, but we do not know the exact reason,”said the specialist.
According to him, in order to obtain accurate information about the reasons for the failure of space technology, a system for monitoring outer space is needed. “Currently, only the United States has such a powerful monitoring system,” Makarov said.
Meanwhile, according to a representative of the state corporation, the Russian space control system has reached parity with the American one. “Five years ago, the picture was completely different,” added Makarov.
In January, Mikhail Panasyuk, director of the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University, said that there are only two large Russian scientific satellites in near-earth orbit, but both of them are not fully functioning.
Earlier in the same month, communications with the Spektr-R orbiting radio telescope were lost. The cause of the problem is the failure of the last working (third) set of transceiver devices.
In December 2018, Russian experts in the field of materials science stated that it is almost impossible to establish the exact origin of the hole in the skin of the Soyuz MS-09 manned spacecraft. In the same month, pilot-cosmonaut Sergei Volkov reported that the reason for the abnormal operation of pyro-locks in the Russian Soyuz TMA-10 and Soyuz TMA-11, due to which these manned spacecraft in April and October 2008, respectively, performed descent on uncontrollable ballistic trajectories is still unknown.