Russia fires space chief

Moscow: Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin on Friday fired the country's space agency chief after a series of embarrassing failures that have clouded the 50th anniversary year of Yuri Gagarin's first space flight.

Roskosmos chief, Anatoly Perminov, will be replaced as head by first deputy defence minister Vladimir Popovkin, the government said in a statement. The statement mentioned that Perminov had reached the maximum age for state employees.

However, indications have been available for some time that the state was increasingly frustrated by the bungling performance of Roskosmos under his charge.

In December Russia suffered one its most embarrassing space failures when three navigation satellites for the new Russian Glonass system failed to reach orbit and crashed into the ocean. Officials later admitted that a simple fuel miscalculation was to blame.

In February this year, Russia put its new Geo-IK-2 military satellite into the wrong orbit, rendering it useless for defence purposes.

The last straw may well have been the delays faced by a manned launch for the International Space Station due to technical problems. The delays came just two weeks ahead of the Gagarin anniversary.