Russia will triple the cluster of its scientific and other civilian satellites in orbit by 2010, local media reported last Wednesday.
Anatoly Perminov, head of Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, told the ITAR-TASS news agency 110 Russian scientific and business-related satellites will be orbiting Earth by 2010.
At present, the country has 53 satellites in orbit, of which 35 are scientific or commercial, the agency said.
The budgets of the federal space program and the Global Navigation Satellite System program are growing by 7 percent to 8 percent annually, Perminov said.
Russia’s Space Troops – the country’s military space command – and Roskosmos plan to launch at least 15 civilian, military and dual-purpose satellites in 2005, ITAR-TASS said earlier this month. Dual-purpose satellites serve both military and civilian needs.
“We plan to replace all old spacecraft by 2007,” an unnamed official from Russia’s Space Troops told the news agency. “Special attention will be paid to dual-purpose spacecraft.”
The satellites that will be launched in 2005 and 2006 will operate for seven to 10 years, the official said.
