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Putin Fires Russian Space Construction Head

Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired the head of Russia`s space construction company. The dismissal comes after a series of embarrassing launch failures which has hurt the program`s prestige and commercial ambitions.

A decree signed by Putin replaced Alexander Medvedev as the head of Khrunichev with Valdimir Nesterov, who has worked in the Russian Federal Space Agency since 1992.

The loss of a high-profile European satellite was among a series of mishaps in October blamed on Khrunichev that jeopardized Russia`s hopes of earning foreign cash from launching foreign commercial satellites. Russia`s space program has not had many of the accidents seen by the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union, so the surprise of a loss like this was stunning.