MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th September, 2022) Russia's Skif-D satellite, the first orbital spacecraft from the Sfera multi-satellite orbital constellation, has been delivered to the Vostochny launch site in the Far East, Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Thursday.
"The Skif-D satellite, the first from the Sfera multi-satellite orbital constellation, has been delivered to the Vostochny cosmodrome. On the night of September 28-29, the specialists of the Vostochny space center transported it from the airport in the city of Blagoveshchensk, to which it had been delivered earlier by the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft," Roscosmos said on Telegram.
The launch of the Skif-D demonstrator is scheduled for the fall of 2022, together with the Gonets-M communications satellite unit.
Overall, 162 satellites will be put into orbit within the Sfera constellation, instead of the initially planned 500 satellites. The system will include Express, Express-RV, and Skif satellites for broadband internet access as well as Marafon satellites for the internet of things.
