Two communication systems are planned to be launched as part of the Sphere program
MOSCOW, January 27. /tass/. Roscosmos plans to launch six Skif satellites until about 2027. This was announced on Thursday by Sergey Prokhorov, director of the Department of Advanced Programs and the Sphere project of the state corporation.
He clarified that it is planned to launch two communication systems within the framework of the Sphere program. "The first system is the Skif. We plan to launch a demonstration sample of the device to protect the orbital frequency resource of the Russian Federation already this year and subsequently, sometime before 2027, to launch six spacecraft to provide broadband Internet access services," Prokhorov said at the conference "Startups, Developments, regulatory framework in the space industry."
The second communication system is "Marathon-IoT" for the Internet of Things. The development is carried out in JSC "Information satellite Systems named after M.F. Reshetnev".
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the Sphere program on a direct line on June 7, 2018. It involves the launch of communications satellites and remote sensing of the Earth. In December 2020, a source told TASS that the work for 2021 has already been determined. In the fall of 2021, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin noted that the Sphere program will include five satellite groupings providing telecom services, and five more - surveillance.
