Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #5

It was still wasteful like heck.

Meteor-M prepates for launch

Today, the Soyuz-2.1b space rocket with the Meteor-M hydrometeorological spacecraft No. 2-4 and 18 Russian and foreign accompanying small satellites was transported to the launch complex of pad 1C of the Vostochny cosmodrome.

After installing the rocket in a vertical position at the launch complex, specialists from the enterprises of the Roscosmos State Corporation continued preparing it for launch.

The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage, the Meteor-M spacecraft No. 2-4 and 18 Russian and foreign accompanying small satellites is planned on February 29 at 08:43:26 Moscow time.

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Meteor-M satellite launched from Vostochny spaceport reaches orbit

MOSCOW, February 29. /TASS/. The Meteor-M No. 2-4 weather satellite launched from the Vostochny spaceport has been put into orbit by the Fregat booster, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos said in a statement.

"The new satellite has reached the designated orbit and separated from the booster. Fregat is now delivering 18 Russian and foreign-made small satellites into their designated orbits," the statement reads.

The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle carrying the satellites blasted off from the Vostochny spaceport at 8:43 a.m. Moscow time (5:43 a.m. GMT).

The Meteor-M satellite is designed to explore the Earth's natural resources, monitor the helio-geophysical situation in near-Earth space and receive information from automatic data collection measurement platforms. The spacecraft is also equipped with the tools of the COSPAS-SARSAT search and rescue system.

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Soyuz MS-25 successfully launched following an earlier abort, and now in orbit. 2 days flight before docking at ISS.

Resurs P-4 has been successfully launched. 5th flight for the year.

Roscosmos approved the preliminary design of a promising Russian orbital station

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. Roscosmos approved the preliminary design of the promising Russian Orbital Station (ROS). The state corporation reported this.

“The preliminary design of the Russian orbital station received a positive conclusion and was approved by the Roscosmos state corporation,” the statement says. It is noted that Roscosmos and the lead contractors are currently working to conclude government contracts for the creation of the station.

Roscosmos recalled that the promising station is intended to become the base for the domestic manned cosmonautics after the International Space Station (ISS) completes its work. The core of the station will be a node module with six docking ports, to which other modules are connected. Each of the station modules can be replaced if necessary - this will extend the service life for decades.

The state corporation also noted that the station will fly in a polar orbit with an inclination of up to 97 degrees. “This will give an overview of the entire earth’s surface, including the Northern Sea Route, which is strategically important for our country. Now cosmonauts on board the ISS can see about 60% of the earth’s surface, of which only about 10% is the territory of Russia,” they said, adding, that the polar orbit will provide guaranteed stable communication with the Earth.

The high energy output of the station, Roscosmos emphasized, is one of the main advantages of the ROS - it will allow testing and testing the technologies of popular equipment, radars and high-power antenna systems. The station's energy will be provided, among other things, by gyroscopic complexes, which make it possible to maintain the station's orbit without engines and significantly save fuel.

The deployment of the new station, as previously reported, is planned for the period from 2027 to 2032. “First, the scientific and energy, hub and gateway modules will be launched into space, then the base module will be launched, which will take over the station’s control functions. Then the development of the station will be continued by the target modules,” Roscosmos noted. They recalled that, unlike the ISS, the new station will be able to operate without the constant presence of astronauts.

About the Russian orbital station

The idea of ​​Russia creating its own orbital station was announced in April 2021. In October 2023, the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, announced that the cost of the station was estimated at 609 billion rubles until 2032, of which 150 billion are planned to be spent in the first three years. According to him, the project is open to international cooperation - an offer has been made to African and BRICS countries to participate in the creation of the station

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Manned space flights must be launched exclusively from Vostochny until Baikonur and all of Kazakh territory is returned back to Russia.

thegopnik wrote:I need to ask did Russia have these satellite resolution capabilities or did they just acquire this capability as of now?  and were they fighting this entire war without those resolution capabilities while Ukraine was given all coordinated attack from NATO intelligence using their satellites? The sanctions from 2014 did not allow them get satellite parts and usually the service life of their LEO sats are at 5 years.

Russia had some satellites. Just not enough to have frequent coverage over the target.

The West has a lot of "commercial" recon satellites. Including whole constellations. So they have more timely data.

Russia unfortunately never got into the recon constellation business. They only have a couple large recon sats like other governments.

Russia needs to launch more Spysats with good resolution and longer service life to increase their capability of tracking incoming NATzO equipment in Ukraine and then carry out quick strikes to destroy these targets. The high resolution photos of destroyed NATzO equipment is a powerful propaganda tool for Russia and a Big Slap to the face of NATO

What will a giant constellation of satellites in orbit give Russia?, by Mikhail Kotov for VZGLYAD. 05.23.2024.

2024 marks the start of mass production of devices for the largest satellite constellation in Russian history, Sphere. How will this group be structured, what is its significance for citizens and businesses - and why is it one of the key elements of Russia’s technological, economic, and even political sovereignty?

One of the main priorities of Russia’s digital development is the creation of its own low-orbit satellite constellation to provide fast and cheap Internet access throughout the country. This was stated by the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev. “This grouping should not be inferior in terms of performance to leading international projects such as Starlink,” said Shadayev, talking about the main tasks of the ministry for the coming years.

On May 21, according to one of the leading Russian satellite manufacturers, JSC Reshetnev, an operator company has been identified whose task will be to manage this satellite constellation. “The new orbital constellations, by decision of the Roscosmos state corporation, will be managed by the joint stock company Satellite System Gonets,” the statement says.

The mentioned project is expensive, large-scale and affects not only the Ministry of Digital Development. For the first time, Roscosmos’ plans to create a Russian constellation under the working title “Global Multifunctional Infocommunication Satellite System” (GMISS) became known in November 2017. Then it was called the “Ether” system and was already planned as a Russian response to foreign broadband Internet access projects – Starlink and OneWeb. At that time, plans were voiced to place three hundred satellites in an orbit at an altitude of 870 kilometers, providing complete signal coverage of the Earth's surface. There were plans for extensive international cooperation - both in terms of joint production of devices and in terms of selling grouping services to clients around the world.

Time has made its own adjustments. Long before the Northern Military District, Western countries refused to supply Russia with components for the production of satellites. And in 2022, sanctions were introduced against the entire space industry . Today, counting on a large international project is unpromising; opportunities to offer communication services in other countries are also limited. At the same time, the importance of domestic production of space technology, independent of foreign players, has sharply increased.

In 2018-2019, the project changed a lot: the number of spacecraft increased to 640, and the name changed to “Sphere”. The project began to focus more on the immediate needs of Russia and included not only communications, but also navigation, television broadcasting, data transmission for the Internet of things and relaying. In essence, Sphere became a project for a unified Russian orbital ecosystem, designed to ensure consistency among various satellite constellations that had previously worked autonomously.

Unlike foreign competitors, Roscosmos has taken the path of creating not one global, but several regional systems (based on coverage areas on Earth). Currently, within the framework of the Sphere, five satellite constellations for communication and information transmission and five constellations for remote sensing of the Earth are being created. Their main goals will be continuous monitoring of Russian territory, including in real time.

The implementation of Sphere began in October 2022 with the launch of the first satellite of the Skif constellation into orbit. This group is part of the Sphere and is responsible for providing broadband Internet access. The Skif-D device (demonstrator) showed an access speed of 6.5 megabits per second. These are not final figures; for this device, it is primarily important to test new technical solutions. Production satellites are expected to have a throughput of 150 gigabits per second.

In total, 12 spacecraft of the Skif group are expected to operate in an orbit at an altitude of about 8 thousand km. This will precisely make it possible to service northern latitudes that are inaccessible to traditional satellites in geostationary orbit, including the Arctic and Northern Sea Route regions. Piloting in ice requires a lot of different satellite information: determination of ice conditions, which is carried out using satellite radars, data from weather satellites. Multispectral satellite images are needed to refine the cartography of the region. For navigation, you need a GLONASS system; for the operation of special buoys and receiving data “from the water,” the so-called Internet of Things system of the “Marathon” series will help. And of course, while sailing you need constant communication - both voice and Internet. All this together is what “Sphere” provides.

The Internet of Things is working with sensors installed on ground-based devices. These can be motion sensors, the state of machines and mechanisms, in other words, everything that is necessary for remote control of various equipment. A classic example is sensors that report a malfunction of gas pipelines - the signal from them is first sent into space and then transmitted to the ground to repair teams.

By the way, Gazprom is one of Sfera’s partners. With the direct participation of the corporation, satellites of the Smotr-V series are being created for remote sensing of the Earth. These satellites will solve a wide range of tasks: detailed monitoring of main gas pipelines, detection of methane leaks, control of the construction of facilities in fields, cartography and surveillance of licensed areas, etc.

The Marathon-IoT system for the Internet of Things will include more than 250 devices; they will be located in 12 orbital planes at an altitude of about 750 km. Conveyor production of these satellites is being created right now. The plans include modernizing the enterprise and installing a new assembly line, which will make it possible to produce five satellites by 2025, and 44 satellites by 2026.

The conveyor is a key innovation introduced in modern satellite production. This is precisely what the “multiple increase” of devices in low-Earth orbit, mentioned by the head of state, should provide.

Just a couple of decades ago, satellites could be compared to large universal harvesters; they were bulky, hermetically sealed and assembled on stocks. The design of modern satellites is dramatically simplified, their weight and functionality are reduced, which dramatically increases production capabilities. Their mass launch into orbit is possible using container launches. All Sphere satellites are assembled according to a modern non-hermetic design.

In addition, to simplify mass production, a decision was made to make spacecraft on a single platform. “Any satellite consists of a universal platform with service equipment, which is responsible for launching the satellite to a given point, its orientation, deployment of solar panels, ensuring operability, collecting and transmitting telemetry to Earth. That is, any satellite is 60-70% unified, moreover, only the payload, depending on a particular space constellation... The principle is simple - maximum unification to ensure serial production,” the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, described the task of such a platform.

The platform will be used, for example, by constellations of surveillance and high-detail imaging satellites “Berkut-O” and “Berkut-VR”, as well as radar monitoring satellites “Berkut-X” and “SMOTR-R”. The launch of the first devices is scheduled for 2025, and the development and expert assessment of projects is currently underway.

More recently, it was decided to join the Gryphon microsatellites based on the CubeSat platform to the Sphere project. A group of 136 devices will survey the earth's surface with a resolution of about 2.5 m, with its help it will be possible to obtain data every 30 hours from the territory of Russia and at least 38 hours around the world.

The Sphere program also includes research work, for example, on the development of a laser communication system between spacecraft. In particular, it is planned to develop two intersatellite communication terminals, and subsequently ground-based equipment for space-Earth communications.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the military significance of the Sphere group. Reconnaissance and targeting using both multispectral imagery and radar data is an essential part of any military operation. No less obvious is the importance of constant secure communication and the ability to work with unmanned vehicles. It can be expected that all the functionality of the space constellation will be used to increase Russia’s defence capability.

Already in 2024, it will be possible to see the first launches under the program, and from 2026 they should become widespread, constituting the main payload for Russian launch vehicles.


The Sphere project is distinguished by maximum pragmatism and compliance with the most modern production practices. The implementation of the project will make it possible to connect any, even the most remote, points of Russia using satellite Internet. “Already within the next decade, it is necessary to provide access to high-speed Internet throughout almost the entire territory of Russia. We will solve this problem, including through a multiple expansion of our satellite constellation. We will allocate 116 billion rubles for its development,” President Vladimir Putin said about this in his message to the Federal Assembly.

“Through the expansion of high technologies in the space industry, Russia is strengthening its technological, industrial, scientific and geopolitical sovereignty. That is why Putin pays special attention to this issue,” says political scientist Alexei Martynov.

The Russian space industry today directly affects the life of every citizen of the country, through GLONASS satellites and navigation on smartphone screens. However, in the coming years this influence will become much wider. Russian businesses will receive their own, national space communications and monitoring systems. Domestic meteorologists will completely abandon information from Western weather satellites this year . The full functioning and safety of strategic transport corridors will be ensured. And Russia will confirm the status of a great space power that it deserves as the country of the world's first satellite.

https://vz.ru/society/2024/5/23/1266824.html