Russia launched the first Sphere satellite into space – an analogue of OneWeb and Starlink
The Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the Sfera satellite constellation was the first to be launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome. The Fregat upper stage was launched into orbit. Deputy Prime Minister – Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said that in 2022 the project will receive 14 billion rubles.
“Sphere” involves providing Russia with access to the Internet and communications, is an analogue of the Starlink and OneWeb projects. It is expected that the constellation will consist of more than 600 spacecraft.
The Soyuz-2.1b rocket was launched at 22:57 on October 22 Moscow time. The Fregat upper stage is to launch the Skif-D demonstration satellite (for the Skif broadband Internet access system, Sfera project), as well as three Gonets-M communications satellites, into the specified orbits. The mass of Skif-D is less than 200 kg, power consumption is about 250 watts. It will be launched in a conventional circular orbit at a height of 8070 km. The duration of the hold is three years.
How economy Government, the rocket went into space on a new type of fuel – petroleum, an environmentally friendly type of hydrocarbon fuel with the use of polymer additives. It was used only for other Soyuz-2.1b stages. “The advantage of naphthyl is to reduce harmful emissions and observed in connection with dependence on the environment,” the resolution says in the resolution.
Mr. Manturov is in permission to take part in the invitation. He said that this year 14 billion rubles were allocated for the project. from the federal budget. In 2023 and 2024, approximately 18 billion rubles are provided, in 2025 – 8.5 billion rubles.
The head of Roskosmos, Yuri Borisov, called Sphere from one of the projects of the state corporation. “Thanks to the creation of the most modern system of communications and monitoring, including both existing and future space infrastructure,” he said. According to the general director of Roskosmos, it is planned to deploy constellations with Yamal and Express communication satellites in geostationary and Express-RV in highly elliptical orbits, Skif in medium orbits and Marathon IoT (Internet of things) — in low orbits.
President Vladimir Putin announced the Sphere satellite system in 2018. In November 2020, Mr. Putin spoke about why the program was not repeated. At the time, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the projects were aimed at implementation, but the essence of the difficulty was with financing. Roskosmos requested the result of the project 1.5 trillion rubles. In June 2021, Dmitry Rogozin estimated the cost of the system at 800 billion rubles.