The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a leading enterprise in Russia’s rocket and space industry, told Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry that physical wear of equipment in some workshops has reached 90%, while the average age of its equipment is 29 years. The information appears in correspondence between the company and the ministry that was reviewed by The Insider.
The Khrunichev Center listed production bottlenecks and critical vulnerabilities while asking for its stock of industrial equipment to be renewed. In its request, the center told the ministry that in the workshop responsible for heat treatment, hot stamping, metal cutting, and sandblasting, the average age of main technological equipment is 20 years, its utilization rate is 90%, and physical wear is also 90%. In addition, the workshop lacks a waterjet cutting unit and an electric furnace, the center said.
According to the Khrunichev Center’s letter, the workshop that makes large structural parts — including frames, panels, beams, crossbars, and fittings — has equipment with an average age of 29 years and average wear of 80%. The production bottleneck there is a CNC vertical milling machining center, with four units needed.
In another workshop, which makes parts such as skins, end caps, hemispheres, pipe connections, bottom sectors, flanges, fairings, cups, and bellows, the center reported equipment wear of 90%, saying it needs a spin-forming machine. In the workshop that manufactures, assembles, welds, and tests low- and high-pressure hoses, it said welding equipment and a test pumping station are lacking.
The Khrunichev Center also complained that equipment wear in the electroplating workshop is 90% and that the workshop lacks a drying chamber. In the workshop that makes and installs forging and trimming dies, welding fixtures, molds, forming mandrels, fitter’s assembly tools, heading tools, and special cutting tools, the average age of equipment is 30 years and wear is 90%. The center is asking for an industrial sharpening machine.
The requested equipment also includes a German Wenzel XO 108 coordinate measuring machine, to be supplied by Kamadi JSC, a well-known importer of metrology equipment. The Insider previously reported on the company’s role in the delivery of such machines to Russia.
Another company, i Machine Technology LLC (which featured in a major investigation carried out jointly by The Insider and Taiwan’s The Reporter), is supposed to supply the Khrunichev Center with a Taiwanese LV-1577 machining center — this despite repeated claims by the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) banning such shipments.
The rest of the imported equipment requested by the Khrunichev Center is Chinese: a LOG90A8 injection molding machine, a PS-CNC3X-460Z-2000 spin-forming machine, a MODIIS SD435Q high-speed hole-drilling electrical discharge machine, and a DM-300 five-axis CNC tool grinder.
Even if the Khrunichev Center’s management is exaggerating the company’s problems in order to secure state support, replacing the equipment would open major opportunities for the enterprise, given that the center continues operating even with the level of wear it reported.
The military enterprise’s confidence that it can obtain the requested equipment from China also indicates that Chinese government claims about banning exports of dual-use goods to Russia’s military-industrial complex do not match reality.
The Khrunichev Center develops and produces the Angara and Proton launch vehicles. It is under U.S. and EU sanctions.
