According to the head of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin, in fact, the Sphere program has already begun, the Ministry of Finance began financing it formally before the adoption of the program
KUBINKA /Moscow region/, August 24. /TASS/. The first funds for the creation of a scientific and technical reserve under the Sphere program will be sent to Roscosmos in the coming days. This was announced in an interview with TASS by the general director of the state corporation Dmitry Rogozin at the International military-Technical Forum "Army-2021".
According to the head of Roscosmos, in fact, the Sphere program has already begun, the Ministry of Finance began financing it formally before the adoption of the program.
"At first, we are talking about 7 billion rubles, which should be implemented to create a scientific and technical reserve, that is, not the grouping itself,but the prototypes of the grouping. And these funds, if they have not yet been received, should be received in the coming days, " Rogozin said.
The first funds, the head of the state corporation specified, should be allocated as activities that are not formally included in the Sphere program itself. "With these funds, we plan to create prototypes of the first spacecraft of one of the orbital groups by the end of next year and thereby secure the frequency resource for the Russian Federation, which just expires at the end of 2022," he said.
Rogozin stressed that without spacecraft it will be impossible to see either fires or problems related to environmental monitoring. "If we don't start now, we will have a gap, because it also takes a certain amount of time to create a spacecraft - at least 3 years," added the general director of Roscosmos.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the Sphere program on a direct line on June 7, 2018. Then he noted that the Russian Federation plans to launch more than 600 communication satellites and remote sensing of the Earth. In December 2020, a source told TASS that the work for 2021 has already been determined. Earlier, the executive director of Roscosmos for advanced programs and science, Alexander Bloshenko, told TASS that the main performers had started work on the Sphere program.
