Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 1 – In Soviet times, Moscow’s space program competed with that of the United States; but now, it is falling behind China, which is launching more satellites into orbit, has more facilities to launch them, and has developed public-private cooperation to the point that it can respond to challenges far more quickly and efficiently, Mariya Sokolova says.
The Novyye Izvestiya observer points out that the Chinese successfully launched 86 rockets in 2025, 30 percent more than it had a year earlier, while Russia remained far behind with the same number this past year as in 2024 – 17 (newizv.ru/news/2025-12-30/kitay-nam-drug-no-kosmos-dorozhe-est-li-shans-u-rossii-ne-sdat-kosmos-kitaytsam-438498).
Moreover, Sokolova notes, China now has four working cosmodromes, while Russia has only three – and one of those has suffered sufficient damages to delay takeoffs for the time being. But what is most striking is China’s use of private companies to power the expansion of its space program, something Russia has not done.
These companies have allowed China to innovate far more rapidly than Russia can, given that Moscow as far as space is concerned largely rests on its laurels from the Soviet past, and to put vehicles into service far more rapidly to rescue its astronauts when problems have arisen in space station components.
And the observer concludes that it is “unfortunately” true that “the Russian Federation lives in the past while the Chinese Peoples Republic lives in the future,” a pattern that if it continues for much longer will further marginalize Russia and give China the chance to challenge the US for leadership in space much as Moscow did decades ago.
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