According to Evgeny Nesterov, General Director of Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems JSC, it is planned to launch two prototypes of the spacecraftMOSCOW, November 11.
/tass/. The start of the deployment of the regular Russian grouping of the Skif satellite system, designed for broadband Internet access, is scheduled for 2025. This was announced in an interview with TASS by the General director of JSC "Information Satellite Systems named after Academician M. F. Reshetnev" (ISS) Evgeny Nesterov.
"It is planned to start deploying the standard Skif system in 2025 with the launch of the first two prototypes of the Skif spacecraft," he said.
According to the general director of the enterprise, at the moment, checks of the systems and payload of the demonstrator apparatus of this grouping, which was launched on October 22 from the Vostochny cosmodrome, have already been completed. Currently, work is underway with him to assess the performance of the main characteristics of the experimental space system and measures are being taken to put into operation the orbital frequency resource of the Skif satellite communication system.
"After the completion of flight testing, experimental work will be carried out on the organization of communication channels, taking into account the influence of the Doppler effect and variable delay. In addition, during the active existence of the spacecraft, studies of the effect of radiation on the satellite in an orbit of 8,000 km will be conducted," the ISS head explained.
Nesterov also noted that the regular Skif apparatus will be different from the demonstrator. Its mass will be over one ton. "In the future, the grouping will be built on the basis of spacecraft with active phased array antennas, which will greatly increase the throughput of the system," he added.
The Skif-D spacecraft became the first satellite launched under the Sphere program, which Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about on a direct line on June 7, 2018. It involves the launch of communications satellites and remote sensing of the Earth. According to the former Director General of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, the program will include five satellite groups providing telecom services, and five more - surveillance.
[i]The full text of the interview will be published at 08:00 Moscow time.[/i]