According to information published by the “Izvestiya” on February 15, the Roscosmos Corporation postponed tendering for insuring launches in 2016 due to lack of sufficient funds.
According to Alexander Podchufarov, Vice-president of one of the leading insurance company “INGOSSTRAKH”, only 6 in 25 launches of space vehicles scheduled for this year were insured. These are launches that had to be carried out last year, but rescheduled for various reasons.
A source in another company engaged in insurance services, emphasizes that the Roscosmos State Corporation has been arranging insurance of commercial launches in rush. As a rule, the insurance contracts are concluded one month to go before the scheduled launch date. However, the launch of “Proton” launcher in January 2016 was insured one day before the start, and the insurance policy arrangements for the February launch began a week before the expected date.
This situation is due to the delay in adopting the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025. According to a source in the Roscosmos, the program adoption is scheduled for March, so the funds for its implementation are not allocated now.
The Mediasat reported before that in the past year, all the Roscosmos’ launches were insured in one package with the insured value of RUR 33.1 billion. In 2016, it was decided to arrange individual insurance policies for every launch.
As known, the insurance of launches started just in 2014 after a number of resounding failures of Russian launch vehicles. We recall that due to several unsuccessful last-year launches the insurance companies suffered serious losses.
