Like a lot of competitors in the global launch industry, Russia for a long time dismissed the prospects of a reusable first stage for a rocket.
As late as 2016, an official with the Russian agency that develops strategy for the country’s main space corporation, Roscosmos, concluded, “The economic feasibility of reusable launch systems is not obvious.” With the dismissal prospects of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Russian officials were not alone. Throughout the 2010s, competitors including space agencies in Europe and Japan, and US-based United Launch Alliance, all decided to develop expendable rockets.
However, by 2017, when SpaceX re-flew a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, the writing was on the wall. “This is a very important step, we sincerely congratulate our colleague on this achievement,” then-Roscosmos CEO Igor Komarov said at the time. He even spoke of developing reusable components, such as rocket engines capable of multiple firings.