Russia will build its satellite Internet. So at the expense of the budget they save the Angara project

On Wednesday, July 18, President Vladimir Putin, at the request of the new General Director of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, approved the creation of a federal target program to create a group of 640 sphere satellites, designed to provide satellite Internet - only in Russia. About broadcasting on other countries - not a word. And all this now, unlike the previous project "Ether" is already strictly at the expense of the budget, that is, citizens. About private investments - not a word. Even the preliminary cost of the project is unknown, the cost of the “broadcast” in 288 satellites was determined in $ 4.7 billion.

Here I will have to inform the fact that is unpleasant for many patriots of Russia: our homeland occupies a little more than three percent of the Earth's surface.

You can poke the interlocutor in the nose as much as you like. But if this state intends to create a connection group exclusively for itself, it will surround the planet with a satellite Internet network for the entire globe (while the satellites are still obeying the laws of physics and do not know how to fly over separate countries), and only three percent of the capabilities of this satellite group will be used. If someone builds a road network of a thousand kilometers, but only 30 of them will voluntarily use it, it will be considered crazy.

Near Vladimir Putin at the meeting was his assistant Andrei Belousov, who believes that in space it is necessary to earn money. Yes, and the president himself said that "the grouping must be effectively used." Above three percent of the surface, as I guess.

There is still no answer to the main question - where will the satellites come from, and even in such quantities? They are produced today literally a few countries, if the EU is considered for a separate country.

Dmitry Rogozin, to my taste, did not learn to avoid high -profile statements ending in shame in a short time.

Commenting on the launch of the FCP "Sphere", he promised in 4 years to build factories producing space electronics with a zone of 22 nanometers. Here I will have to inform the fact that is unpleasant to many liberal-thinking citizens of Russia: the US Coordination Committee on the US export control never reduced the bar for the ban on sales of such equipment, even in the most democratic times, in the mid-90s. This fact is useful to take into account in their picture of the world.

You need to know that in the Russian Federation on imported equipment, mass production of 90 nm microcircuits has been mastered and very limited - 65 nm (in the world such electronics is launched for sale 15 years ago).

The best domestic processors of the brands "Baikal" and "Elbrus" are produced in Taiwan.

The production of microcircuits 22 Nm will be mastered no earlier than after 10 years if the West suddenly removes restrictions.

Literally on the eve of July 4, the Chinese delegation flew to us specifically to get acquainted with the new leadership of Roscosmos. During the negotiations of Russia, it was proposed to jointly create a huge satellite group, a competitor to OneWeb. According to insiders, Dmitry Rogozin did not actively respond to China's proposal. But Beijing did not join the sanctions, is considered our ally and has a real base for the production of microelectronics for such a large -scale project. Now it’s clear why - the document on the creation of a Russian group outside the international cooperation was already on signatures in the Kremlin.

Briefly, conclusions from the foregoing can be formulated as follows: all themselves, all only for yourself and primarily for the military -industrial complex, everything is due to the budget and only by the forces of state enterprises. No private space, no private-state partnership.

I don’t know what plants in the production of 22 nm microcircuits in such a configuration of the future are Modelozin, but it seems that we will see Fiasco during his lifetime.

As you understand the high cost and commercial inferiority of the “sphere” (in the case of the stated concept), the rhetoric’s leadership will change. We will also hear that from the very beginning we wanted differently and what happened in the end-this is the planned result.

Valery Shiryaev, "New Gazeta"

From the editorial office

The experts and industry employees interviewed by us believe that the president’s meeting announced a fundamentally new concept for the development of domestic cosmonautics. Their moods are mostly pessimistic.

The general opinion is Dmitry Rogozin and the team coming with him at the expense of the budget create a load for launching the Angara missile, which has been devoted to the creation and promotion of which have been dedicated for many years. Its considerable cost sharply reduces the chances of successful competition in the global space market.

And Rogozin is ready to abandon the life of a not too successful brainchild, replacing it with a state order.

This, according to our interlocutors, is the path of marginalization, Autarchy and gradual loss of positions. In the conditions of the monopolism of Roscosmos, the main employer in the industry, they expressed their opinion anonymously. We offer readers a brief presentation.

The current leadership of the industry, led by Rogozin, relies on Angara

If we analyze the main provisions of the picture of the future of our astronautics presented by the president and later Dmitry Rogozin, it is obvious that the idea of ​​attracting private business was abandoned, the project will be completely state. We are not talking about international cooperation either. Roscosmos went through Ilona Mask, which, to create a payload for its missiles, develops, together with Google, a similar project of the STARLINK space Internet (up to 12,000 satellites). If there are few starts, the reusability of Falcon 9, which Elon Musk is so proud of, will be just useless. For a huge Starlink group, the SPCEX missiles will need to be launched very often.

Dmitry Rogozin and the new top managers of Roscosmos have an Angara. They understand that it will be partly possible to reduce the cost of this rocket only if it flies a lot. But there is no useful load for her: commercial customers who used our missiles before are not interested in it, because it is twice as much as Protone. And the stories of the non -quality launches necessary for insurance companies are also not yet there. But under any circumstances, no matter how often the Angara would fly in the future, in comparison with Falcon 9, it will remain uncompetitive - these are the features embedded in both of these missiles by designers.

Today it is quite obvious that with the now successfully flying “Proton” and “Union”, the Angara rocket as a commercial medium is generally no one needs.

Therefore, under Komarov, Roskosmos was cool to this rocket, and the Khrunichev center did not particularly support. Dmitry Rogozin promoted and advertised by all his might for a long time. He largely connected his reputation with her. Therefore, having come to the post, he destroyed the “Proton” as a competitor by one of his first decisions, announcing the termination of his production in an interview on June 22.

Thus, the new leadership of the industry practically abandoned international competition in the global launch market. All Russian astronautics again falls to the level of state order. The comparison is obvious: Musk attracts money in the market for development, and Rogozin from the budget. He has repeatedly spoke out in the spirit that foreign money is not particularly needed by Russian cosmonautics. But he cannot but know that during the existence of Roscosmos, he received a quarter of all money from foreign customers.

There are no plans for the development of satellite Internet in the previous state space program. According to announced plans, the financing of the industry does not increase in comparison with the previous decade. In such conditions, rejection of foreign customers means reducing financing our astronautics by 25%. And the state at its own expense covers this shortage in the new project "Sphere".

No one knows what constructive features the developers will endow, what the satellites themselves will look like, whether it will have interlocutory communications and a developed ground segment. Therefore, its cost is still difficult to predict. But less than $ 3 billion, it will definitely not cost. And if you run the satellites of the group “Angara, it will come out even more. The OneWeb project, for example, is looking for a cheaper missile for its launches, including the old proven Russian Union.

From the point of view of Rogozin as a leader, the task of Roscosmos in this project is more likely to load the Angaru work so that everyone is convinced of his rightness than earn money. Therefore, it is likely to actively develop the draft of the cheaper Soyuz-5 missile, converted from the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit. The very grouping of satellites, its quality and the capabilities of the new Roscosmos managers are much less interested in.

Today, the civilian “messenger” system flies today, launched without any marketing and miscalculation of commercial prospects. The management recently reported on one and a half thousand users. This is a frivolous figure for a global group, which has been created for 10 years. This happens when the performer wants to just launch, and what exactly does not matter.

The commercial prospect of the new project “Sphere” is also incomprehensible. Who will create these 640 satellites? Our electronics is not reliable enough, but satellites in Russia are able to do. We will have to learn to produce a lot and quickly, but not at all the fact that it will work out.

Here we are not in the very losing position. There is no stream production of satellites in the world yet. Everywhere they are manual assembly. Not a single enterprise in the world has yet produced at least 10 large satellites a year, and all promising systems competing with the “sphere” require many thousands. The closest to such an organization of production today Airbus, already 2 years ago, has begun preparation for such production. It is possible that the production of Airbus satellites has begun, but there were no readiness of the statements yet. Ilon Musk for his program for 3 years produced two satellites.

Is Russia ready for this production? Perhaps it is better to say this: China’s industry is ready to produce electronics in such quantities that Russian engineers will need to mount in the right place. If we talk about a Russian satellite by 100%, then it cannot appear in at least the next 10 years, and the electronics in the “Sphere” group will not be domestic.

Many Beijing in the leadership of the military-industrial complex (and the astronautics-part, without a doubt) call the closest ally simply because our other partners and top managers themselves dispersed. But as a real ally, it is dangerous to perceive it.

So far, China considers our astronautics as a closed chest of knowledge, which must be scooped up to the bottom.

Ultimately, the low orbits of the satellites of the Sphere project are not put forward by particularly high requirements for technology: radiation on them is much lower than in a geostationary high orbit. If you fly below the radiation zones of the Earth’s microcircuits of special reliability of the Space category are not always needed. The quality of the stream production of electronics is growing continuously. On standard products, satellites of this type can stretch for 5-8 years.

Of course, there will be failures, degradation of orbits, falling due to braking in the atmosphere. So to launch the satellites to maintain the group in working condition, it will be necessary to constantly. And to use to reduce the cost of satellites industrial mass electronics of non -space purposes, our competitors from Oneweb and Starlink will be the same.

Since the SPRE system, according to the information announced by the President, is focused on the internal customer, the contractor does not really care that its satellites are not used anywhere except Russia. The main thing is that their launch is paid. There is no doubt that Roscosmos will still try to trade in this service, to make it commercially attractive. But given the alleged competition and questions with the quality that we traditionally lame, it is difficult to argue about the prospects.

Under the former leadership, Roscosmos tried to enter cooperation and contractual relations with OneWeb, to become a shareholder in order to be able to make part of the group at his capacities. In this scheme, the cargo of worries about commercialization, payback and operation fell on the international management of Oneweb, which has much more experience in such matters. The Ministry of Communications opposed, blocking the work of their joint venture.

The reasons are reliably unknown, perhaps they are political, since the project is foreign. Although not American, today the political leadership is ready to consider almost everyone enemies. Of course, from the point of view of modern management, creating a group for communication in the territory of Russia only is irrational, softly speaking, but for the Russian state it is possible and is considered normal, despite expenses and cost.

The trajectory of the Roscosmos movement after Rogozin arrives almost completely closes the entire cosmic activity of Russia at the state order. This has not happened since the 80s.

Despite the fact that the country's economic capabilities and the volume of state order are much less today than in the 80s.

The economic uncertainty of the state of our economy in such a strategy increases the risks of Russian cosmonautics. Any deterioration will affect it - a drop in oil prices, any crises. This will beat on astronautics, because she will have no other sources of income.

There is a question of diversification - the more sources of income, the more stable the finances of the industry. In the future, it is easy to anticipate the endless cutting of the budget. The country's leadership will try to save some key positions, and everything else will be lost. This leads our space industry for degradation.

At least a short -sighted path has been selected, although in the short term it provides a concentration of efforts. This is partly a forced decision: if we are moving towards political isolation today, then the rate on international cooperation in the astronautics is risky. Neither the astronautics, nor the cosmic communication, nor our entire economy have the task of delving into the global market. And in the space industry, state orders traditionally love more than the implementation of commercial orders of capricious foreigners.

V. Sh.

And at this time

FSB discovered a space leak

On Friday morning at the enterprises of Roscosmos, the FSB investigation into searches under the framework of an initiated criminal case under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Gosizman). Operational measures affected the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TsNIIMASH) and the research and analytical center of the United Rocket and Cosmic Corporation (OrcC). The FSB officers checked information on the intentional transfer of secret data by officials of enterprises on Russian developmental weapons developments to foreign intelligence services.

According to RBC, earlier a verification on the disclosure of the information constituting GOSTIIN was also held in the Roscosmos itself. It is likely that the reason is the message of the American CNBC channel on testing the first Russian hypersonic missile Avangard, including a lot of detailed details. In particular, it was reported about the failure of the tests in October last year, the period of readiness of the missile system and the data on the installation of avant -garde combat blocks on intercontinental ballistic missiles UR -100h.

According to investigators, the leakage of data under the Grand Secret stamp came from the employees of TsNIIMASH, where the director of the Research and Analytic Center of the OrcC Dmitry Payson previously worked, which retained close contact with former colleagues. At the time of the searches, he chose to remain silent and not comment on the events. But the very next day, the press service of Roscosmos announced his resignation. Obviously, the person of Pyson will appear in the criminal case of the Stateizer, but it is still unclear in what capacity is a valuable witness or the accused.

According to Kommersant, Pyson was going to fire after Dmitry Rogozin arrived at the post of head of Roscosmos. The head of the corporation, according to the press service, "was informed in this case and instructed the investigation group maximum assistance."