The head of a top Russian rocket company handed in his notice on Wednesday, a day after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reprimanded space officials over a failed satellite launch last month, a government source said.
The resignation of Vladimir Nesterov, head of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow, is being processed, the source said.
Speaking at a meeting with top space officials on Tuesday, Medvedev said a string of recent space failures tarnished Russia's image as a "leading space power" and instructed the government to draw up "practical proposals" on how to tighten controls on aerospace production.
