By 2030, Roscosmos will launch about 600 satellites of the Sphere system, which is "analogous" to the Western projects Starlink and OneWeb, [...] the official magazine of the Russian space Corporation promises.
The publication claims that the Sphere's ideology is "stronger" than that of Starlink and OneWeb, since The latter "are aimed exclusively at solving communication problems and transmitting large amounts of information."
"But it is obvious that in some cases, the consumer does not need expensive broadband Internet — it is enough for him to get data from the electricity or gas meter in a country house or send a signal about the need for urgent assistance," the publication says.
It also reports that the Sphere's user terminals will be more compact and cheaper than those of Starlink.
In February, Sergey Prokhorov, Director of the Department of advanced programs and the Sphere project at Roscosmos , said that the creation of the Russian multifunctional satellite system Sphere would require extra-budgetary investments of more than 350 billion rubles. According to him, the relevant investors have already been found.
In April 2019, a representative of Roscosmos said that the creation of the "Sphere" will require almost 534 billion rubles.
In June 2018 , it was reported that the project of the global satellite system "Sphere", involving the deployment of about 600 satellites, is a modified version of the previously announced "Roscosmos" project of the communication system "Ether".
In may 2018, Roscosmos announced the project "Ether", designed to compete with similar Western systems OneWeb and Starlink. At the same time , Yevgeny Nesterov, Deputy General Director for strategic development and innovation of Russian space systems , noted that the program, which provides for the deployment of a group of 288 satellites with an orbit height of 870 kilometers by 2025, will require investments of 300 billion rubles.