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| Dunno on the moon. |
| Source: FAF Entertainment |
The Marathon IoT and Skif satellite communication systems, which are part of the federal space project Sphere, may go into oblivion. Many participants in the Russian satellite communications market have heard that the new Roscosmos team has decided to abandon them. At the same time, even pessimists suggest not rushing to final conclusions and waiting for May 1, 2025.
By this date, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the federal government, together with the Roscosmos state corporation, to approve a national project for the development of space activities for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036. The head of state gave such an instruction following a meeting of the Presidential Council for Strategic Development and National Projects held on December 5, 2024. As follows from the text of the instruction published on the Kremlin's website on December 28, 2024, this national project should "comprehensively define tasks, activities, targets and expected development results" of space activities. The deadline for execution of this order is May 1, 2025.
Since the day of this assignment, the CEO of Roscosmos has been replaced: in February 2025, Dmitry Bakanov from the Ministry of Transport took over this position instead of the former head Yuri Borisov. According to market participants, with the arrival of a new head, Roscosmos has changed its views on the prospects of various satellite systems. On the sidelines of the Satellite Russia 2025 conference, which was held two weeks ago by the ComNews Information Group, market participants for the first time shared rumors that Roscosmos intends to abandon the Marathon IoT low-orbit satellite system for Internet of Things services, as well as the Skif space system to provide BROADBAND services from medium orbit.
Both systems are no longer paper projects: the government has started spending money on them. Back in September 2023, Roscosmos entered into state contracts for the manufacture of Marathon IoT and Skif satellites with Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems (JSC Reshetnev). However, at that time the state corporation found money for only half of the planned number of these satellite groups: 132 Marathon IoT spacecraft (instead of 264) and a few Skif satellites (instead of 12).
In October 2022, Roscosmos launched the first Skif-D demonstration satellite into orbit (it was launched as a payload, along with three Gonets-M spacecraft and a Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Vostochny cosmodrome).
Cadres decide everything
The Sphere project was under the responsibility of Alexander Bloshenko, Deputy Director General for Space Complexes and Science at Roscosmos. But on February 14, 2025, Roscosmos announced that Alexander Bloshenko had resigned by agreement of the parties. As ComNews found out, Sergey Prokhorov, director of the Department of Advanced Programs and the Sphere project, also resigned from Roscosmos in mid-March.
Alexander Bloshenko and Sergey Prokhorov were, respectively, Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC Satellite System Gonets. A year ago, on March 29, 2024, Roscosmos authorized this company to operate all new orbital groupings included in the federal Sphere program: Gonets (including the fundamentally new Gonets-M1 spacecraft), Express-RV, Skif and Marathon IoT.
Andrey Manoilo, CEO of Gonets Satellite System JSC, told a ComNews correspondent: "In connection with his dismissal [from Roscosmos Alexander Bloshenko and Sergey Prokhorov resigned from the board of Directors of Gonets. Who will be elected instead of them will be determined by Roscosmos State Corporation.
Personnel losses also occurred at Reshetnev JSC: General Designer Alexander Kuzovnikov recently left this production company. Reshetnev's press service confirmed Alexander Kuzovnikov's departure to a ComNews correspondent, recalling that he worked at the company from 2007 to 2025, having worked his way up from engineer to general designer. Mikhail Valov became the new General designer of Reshetnev JSC, who has worked at the enterprise as deputy General Designer since 2022.
The press service of Roscosmos left unanswered a question from a ComNews correspondent about the prospects of the Marathon IoT and Skif satellite systems. According to ComNews, the main author of the new national project for the development of space activities for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036 from Roscosmos is Sergey Karutin, General Director of the Institute of Navigation Technologies JSC, and in the recent past, the general designer of the GLONASS system. A ComNews correspondent got through to Sergey Karutin, but he referred to his busy schedule and forwarded questions to the Roscosmos press service.
The patient is probably dead.
"The future fate of the promising Skif and Marathon IoT projects within the framework of the new national project has not yet been determined. The Skif-D demonstration spacecraft, successfully launched in 2022, is still functioning normally in orbit, and the two Marathon IoT satellites developed by Reshetnev JSC are ready for launch by the end of this year," a source close to Roscosmos told ComNews.
Igor Ilyinchik, the owner of the Internet Solutions company, argues: "I think that the closure of the Marathon IoT and Skif programs is mostly due to lack of money, not excluding other reasons. I draw a conclusion from an indirect sign: one of the subsidiaries of Roscosmos, which is our client, has not paid its obligations for more than six months. The lawyer of this company has demonstrated by his actions that they are not going to pay their debts. As a result, we filed a lawsuit with the arbitration court, and we are far from the only ones."
Igor Ilyinchik believes that the problems with financing state projects and state defense orders are primarily related to "the exorbitant discount rate of the Central Bank, which has eaten up the money allocated to project budgets and deprives manufacturers of funds to continue working."
Sergey Pekhterev, a shareholder of KA-Internet JSC, supports the idea of reformatting the entire Sphere project. "The revision of the Sphere project is quite real and even necessary: it was adopted before the sanctions, and now, of course, it is worth assessing the dynamics of its individual components," Sergey Pekhterev is convinced. - In addition, the Bureau 1440 project has emerged and is dynamically developing in parallel, creating competition with individual projects within the Sphere, for example, with Skif. The Skif project was based on an advanced unique technology using digital phased array antennas, which was planned to be created with the participation of Western partners, which is now impossible due to sanctions. Budget constraints are also possible, so the idea of focusing on the most versatile projects that show the best development dynamics is very sensible."
Space maps
A week ago, the Kremlin published a list of instructions following a meeting on the development of unmanned aircraft systems held on January 28, 2025 with the participation of Vladimir Putin. Among these instructions are to include low-orbit satellite communications and navigation systems in the national projects "Unmanned Aircraft Systems", "Data Economics and Digital Transformation of the state", the national project for the development of space activities for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036, as well as to provide additional funding for these activities.
One of the functions of the Marathon IoT system, in accordance with its tactical and technical specifications, was the ability to monitor and control unmanned vehicles and, more broadly, any unmanned systems. Valentin Anpilogov, Deputy General Director of Visat-Tel JSC, one of the main ideologists of the creation of the Marathon IoT system, argues: "If the closure of the Marathon IoT project really happens, it will call into question the fulfillment of the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation - the state does not even have other similar systems in the project." Valentin Anpilogov noted that, unlike other satellite systems, in the Marathon IoT system, the problems of having an element component base for the space and Earth segments have been solved 100%. "Russia also has a powerful production potential for the serial manufacture of subscriber devices, the prototypes of which are already widely used in terrestrial IoT networks, and not only in Russia," says Visat-Tel's deputy CEO. - In fact, the Marathon IoT system belongs to the class of D2D-IoT systems, and also has a high export potential. The closure of the Marathon IoT project will be a powerful blow to Russia's technological sovereignty and prospects for cooperation with friendly countries."
The Marathon IoT and Skif systems are not only elements of the Sphere program, but both were included in the Communications Industry Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2035, which Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved by Decree No. 3339-r dated November 24, 2023.
As follows from this document, the first stage of the strategy's implementation (2023-2030) includes, among other things, the creation of the Skif satellite system in medium orbits to provide broadband Internet access and the Marathon IoT low-orbit multi-satellite data transmission system for Internet of Things (M2M/IoT) services, including in the interests of aviation. (to provide a global AZN-B service and C2 lines for unmanned aircraft).
The strategy has set targets for the creation and launch into orbit of 12 Skif spacecraft and 264 Marathon IoT satellites by 2030. If Roscosmos decides to put Skif and Marathon IoT under the knife, there will be a conflict with the approval of a new version of the Strategy for the Development of the communications industry of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2035, in which these groups will be eliminated.
Alexey Mikolenko,
Leonid Konik
