cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/8044437
The story concerns a satellite constellation now known as Sfera (or Sphere, in English), a modestly ambitious constellation of 264 satellites. The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia and high-resolution Earth observation satellites.
“At first it was called Ehfir,” Putin said. “And at one of my public speeches I was talking and said it was Sfera. I arrived at the Kremlin, and the former Roscosmos head greeted me and said, ‘Vladimirovich, you said it was project Sfera, Sfera you said. That’s what it is, project Sfera.’”
Rogozin, who was listening to these remarks, acted immediately—presumably to save his boss from embarrassment. After Rogozin said the constellation was named Sphere, Putin recalled that he asked how’s that? Rogozin replied that it had already been renamed Sfera and not to worry.
Laughing, Putin added, “So I didn’t even make it back and it’s already renamed to Sfera. So I said, well, OK then.” Rogozin confirmed the anecdote on his Telegram channel this week.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia and high-resolution Earth observation satellites.
As is usual with Russian space projects, because they tend to be poorly funded, the timeline for Sphere’s deployment has been delayed and its scope reduced.
Before 2018, this satellite program was known as Ehfir (Ether), a reference to the invisible substance once thought to fill the universe and the medium through which light waves propagated.
According to a Roscosmos press release issued at the beginning of 2022, the Sphere program was hampered by the need for “colossal government spending” on other projects, including dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this month, at the International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan, the new leader of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, referenced the Sphere constellation.
Now, he said, plans for the constellation will include the capacity to provide direct-to-cell communications, which necessarily means that some of these satellites will be very large.
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