Russian Deputy PM warns of possible trouble with Proton-M rocket assembly workers
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated that the reason for withdrawing the engines of the second and third rocket stages of the Proton-М is the low salaries of the plant workers.
“Production standards [at Voronezh mechanical plant] are very low. They are in bad condition and I personally witnessed it. This plant should be updated first,” Rogozin said, according to RIA Novosti.
“Yesterday I signed an order for Roskosmos to analyze all critical launch vehicles, engines, various components aggregates, management systems and also space vehicles that should work round-the-clock in orbit, in terms of fail safety of production. [I ordered them] to identify all critical points at manufacturing process and people who are in contact with this equipment and related to it. If these people earn 12 to 15 thousand rubles per month (about 200 USD – Ed.), there’s going to be trouble. And that is an answer. Subversives are those people who pay such money to these people.”
Earlier it was reported that Roskosmos withdrew all engines of the second and third stages of the Proton-M rocket launch vehicles and sent them back to the Voronezh Mechanical plant. Problems were identified during the tests of one of the liquid rocket engines.