Moscow, Sep 11 (IANS/RIA Novosti): Russia will spend 670 billion rubles ($21 billion) to develop its space industry in the coming years, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday.

"This is big money, you must not let a significant part of it be blown away," Medvedev told a government meeting in his Moscow region residence Monday but did not give the exact timeframe for the expenditure.

The prime minister said a string of recent space failures "just should not be". He earlier said the failures hurt Russia's image as a leading space power.

"No space power has had that many failed launches," he said.

Medvedev sacked a number of senior space officials last month after two satellites were lost due to a failure in the Russian Proton-M rocket's upper stage.

Speaking Monday, Medvedev said that entire teams working on spacecraft should be held responsible for future failures, not only key officials.

He also said the country's space industry was in need of a "new system of quality control".