Following the launch failure of the Proton M/Breeze M whicl lost the Express MD2 and Telkom 3 satellites on 6 August, Vladimir Nesterov, head of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow, has handed in his resignation, The Khrunivev firm builds and operates the Proton M launch vehicle
The move came after the Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, gave Russian space officials in the Roscosmos space agency and its associated space manufacturing companies an ultimatum to improve the Russian space programme’s reliability record which remains poor compared to other space nations.