MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th November, 2020) The launch of satellites within the Sfera constellation will begin in 2024 rather than in 2023, as previously intended, Sergey Prokhorov, the head of the Department of Advanced Programs at the Russian state space agency, Roscosmos, and the director of the Sfera program, said on Wednesday.
"If funding for priority work starts next year, then, I hope, the first launches will begin in 2024, which will allow us to deploy the high-orbit segment. Next, we will begin to unfold the low-orbit segment. In parallel, we will be working to create radar monitoring systems based on small spacecraft," Prokhorov told Roscosmos' Russky Kosmos journal.
Program Sfera was inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018. It emerged as a Russian challenger to the previously existing OneWeb and Starlink constellations of satellites, developed in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively.
