Russian Space Agency Gives Figures for Contracts, Baykonur Launches

Roskosmos, Russia’s Federal Space Agency, has said that it has 800 million dollars’ worth of firm contracts for 2008, the Russian news agency Interfax-AVN website reported on 28 August.

At the MAKS-2007 airshow, “we confirmed the contracts and agreements that are of a long-term nature and that relate not to the sale of some elements but first and foremost to the sale of services. Contracts worth a total of 800m dollars have been confirmed for 2008, which for our space industry is a very substantial amount,” Anatoliy Perminov, Roskosmos head, told Russian Mayak radio, as reported by AVN.

For 2009, Perminov added, the sum of firm orders is “a little larger”. The future market is estimated 15-20 years ahead, he noted.

Perminov went on to say that funding from the state for space programmes is limited. “We are funded at the level of India, which in respect of its space activities is fifth. With regard to these activities, Russia, on the other hand, comes first or second,” he noted. He said that in 2007 around 1bn dollars would be spent by the treasury on space activities, as compared to NASA’s budget of 16.8bn dollars this year.

In addition to their core products, the industry also makes a large amount of products for other sectors of the economy, Perminov also said. They include the energy sector and medicine. In 2006, 13bn roubles’ worth of these products were manufactured, with some 8bn roubles’ worth of them put out in the first seven months of this year, Perminov said. Norilsk Nickel alone accounts for 3.5bn roubles’ worth of products from 12 companies in Roskosmos this year, he said.

Among the agency’s current projects, Perminov noted studies into the formation of a group of four to six satellites in orbit to monitor the climate in the Arctic. There were no further details on the project.

Baykonur launches

Up to 10 space launches are due to be carried out from the Baykonur space centre, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan, before the end of this year, AVN reported separately.

This autumn, seven launches are planned, both as part of Russia’s own space activities and under commercial contracts, with two to three more in December, the agency’s source at Baykonur said.

Preparations are under way there for the launch of the JCSAT-11 telecommunications satellite by a Proton launch vehicle, the Foton- M scientific satellite by a Soyuz-U, and the Soyuz TMA-11 manned spacecraft also by a Soyuz-U, respectively on 6 and 14 September and 10 October.

In October, a Soyuz-FG launch vehicle will carry four Globalstar telecommunications satellites, a Proton will launch a cluster of three Russian Glonass satellite navigation system satellites, and another Proton – a commercial one – will take the Sirius 4 telecommunications satellite into orbit.

And in November, a Proton-M will launch a Thor 2R commercial telecommunications satellite.

With these seven launches and two to three more in December, plus 10 launches that have been carried out between January and August, the total will come to around 20 for 2007.

Sources: Interfax-AVN military news agency website, Moscow, in Russian 1020 and 0526 gmt 28 Aug 07

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