MOSCOW, July 13 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law on Monday deemed On The State Corporation for Space Activities [of] Roscosmos in hopes of improving all aspects of the country's management of its initiatives in outer space.

The law, creating Roscosmos as a new corporation to replace the Russian Federal Space Agency, was passed by the State Duma on July 1 and approved by the Federation Council on July 7.


The new federal law "aims at improving the management of space activities, preservation and development of scientific and industrial potential of the rocket and space industry organizations in order to strengthen the country's defense and security," the Kremlin said in a statement as translated by Russia Today.

In addition to being in charge of training and selecting astronauts, the Roscosmos Corporation will coordinate activities related to the global positioning system and the management and coordination of two cosmodromes.

Russian space enterprises should become joint-stock companies over the next five years, Igor Komarov said at the Federation Council on July 7, Russia Beyond the Headlines reported.

"To achieve this result, decisions have been made concerning the decentralization and the empowerment of Roscosmos with the authority to carry out effective reforms," Komarov said at the Federal Council meeting last week. "The task was set up to ensure the transformation of more than 80 shareholding companies, design bureaus and research institutes into joint-stock companies in a short period of time." Reducing budget expenditures and modernization through export contracts' implementation will be major issues.

The Russian government in February announced that it was looking to create its own space station by 2024, which would give the country's space agency a platform to further its goals to explore the Moon, Russia Today also reported.

"The configuration of a multi-purpose laboratory module, a [docking] node module and a scientific power module [would] create a promising Russian space station to meet the challenges of providing secure access to space," a statement from the agency read, according to Tass.

Russia and the U.S. are the main partners of the International Space Station (ISS), which continues to serve as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory where astronauts conduct experiments in biology, physics, meteorology and other fields.