To create a national satellite network, the Internet Roskosmos will need 300 billion rubles

Illustration of the structure of the One Web satellite system

About a week ago on Geektimes it was reported that the state corporation Roscosmos will present a project to create a national system for covering the earth’s surface with high-speed Internet access. According to the organization, the satellite network will provide a continuous communication channel for unmanned vehicles, the Internet of things and secure data transmission.

Today it became known that the implementation of this project, which was called “Ether”, will cost the budget 300 billion rubles. This was announced by the Deputy Director General for Strategic Development and Innovations of the Russian Space Systems Company (“Russian Space Systems”) Yevgeny Nesterov, RIA Novosti reports .

“This project is present in the“ Digital Economy ”program, its scale of financing - for the time being we can only say this - is 300 billion rubles. This is the launch of almost 300 small spacecraft, ground infrastructure. We will work out a detailed estimate in the next four months. The project will be implemented in broad cooperation with the involvement of extrabudgetary funds, ”the manager said.

He says that in the next 3-4 months the model of the orbital constellation of satellites and the business model of "Ether" will be refined. In the autumn, the organization will receive accurate estimates and you can start designing. The project involves partners - there are about 30. There are Russian and foreign companies. As for domestic partners, the main one is Rocket and Space Corporation “Energia”. Launches are planned to be carried out on Soyuz-5 missiles. Each year, the project will launch several dozen satellites. The system will be commissioned by 2025, the life of each satellite is 5-8 years.

In order to wirelessly cover the whole territory of Russia, you need about 70 satellites. If we talk about the entire planet, then several times more - about 300.

It is worth noting that not all officials approve of the new project. For example, Andrei Belousov, Assistant to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, believes that it is too late to create such a system: “The figures that (...) led to are impressive against the background of zero, but against the background of the market that will be 2022-2025 years, it is very little. "